Tag: martial law

Why some US elites want South Korea to be a ‘dictatorship for democracy’

Morse Tan, a high-ranking former US State Department official, let the cat out of the bag on the US ruling elite position on South Korea’s martial law.

He declared that President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law to “preserve democracy”. At a rally in South Korea, Tan said:

President Yoon declared martial law, and it is to preserve your democracy, that this country was made, and exists, by you, and for you, that President Yoon stuck out his neck, in a heroic way, and stood up to awaken this country, to the realities of what are going on in this country.

Having previously labeled South Korea a model democracy, this is a No-Scotsman-move taken to absurdity.

Tan also openly threatened South Korea’s government against upholding Yoon’s impeachment. Writing for the global news agency UPI on March 18, he warned:

Removing Yoon may trigger Section 7008 punishments from the United States government, which can include the elimination of: Bilateral Economic Assistance (III), International Security Assistance (IV), Multilateral Assistance (V), and Export and Investment Assistance (VI).

The US applies Section 7008 when a country is deemed to have undergone a military coup, or a coup d’etat “where the military has played a significant role”. Under those circumstances, critical aid is withdrawn from the country. It is an extreme measure — the political equivalent of banishment and excommunication — exercised against a state.

If Tan’s threats are material, South Korea risks being grouped with Myanmar, Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Sudan — other countries currently under section 7008 listing. Notice the explicit use of the word “punishment”.

Now Tan is not a current US government official, buthe is an indicator of what the US national security state is thinking, in particular, what its neoconservative wing is thinking. Tan also recently claimed that “the impeachment against Yoon is an insurrection” led by opposition party leader Lee Jae Myung, “who wants to turn the country over to the Chinese communists”.

As absurd and conspiratorial as these allegations sound, these are actually finely tuned and well-honed Washington-CPAC talking points about Chinese threats and interference in Korea, and they are echoed endlessly, if histrionically, by US flag-waving foot soldiers at South Korean protests and on YouTube.

These anti-China messages were also repeated in German State TV ARD’s documentary “Staatskrise im Schatten von China und Nordkorea” (State Crisis in the Shadow of China and North Korea), released to its German public television website on February 25. The documentary claimed that China had hacked South Korea’s legislative election to put the opposition DP party into power, which is now taking orders from North Korea and China to impeach Yoon.

There is clearly a highly convergent and disciplined campaign of anti-China propaganda around the impeachment. ARD removed its documentary, but the damage has clearly been done.

It’s impossible not to highlight the absurdity of Tan’s statement that “Yoon declared martial law (i.e. military dictatorship) to preserve democracy”. And, as a foreign national, Tan is breaking South Korean law by directly participating in domestic Korean politics. But the free rein he is given, and the lack of disavowal or reprimand from the State Department – if only for his own safety – is very revealing.

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After Ceasefire With Russia, Trump and Kellog Want Ukraine To Hold Presidential Elections – Zelensky’s Mandate Expired in Mid-2024

Amid what US President Donald J. Trump called ‘very serious’ – if still-secret – peace discussions with Russia, some aspects of the sought agreement have started to leak to the press.

One of the most relevant so far is that the US wants Ukraine to hold elections by the end of the year, especially if Kiev signs a ceasefire with Russia in the coming months, according to President Trump’s Ukraine envoy.

Reuters reported:

“Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, ‘need to be done’.

‘Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so’, Kellogg said. ‘I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running’.”

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Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol Surrenders to Investigators To Avoid Bloodshed Between Police and Presidential Guard During Second Attempt To Arrest Him

The political instability in Seoul continues as news arises that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been arrested in a second attempt by the police authorities, six weeks after his short-lived attempt to impose martial law and 10 days after a first failed arrest attempt.

Sky News reported:

“A motorcade of black SUVs was seen leaving the gates of his hillside residence where he had been holed up for weeks behind barbed wire and a small army of personal security.

Mr Yoon said the “rule of law has completely collapsed” in a video message recorded before he was escorted to the headquarters of an anti-corruption agency. He said he was complying with the detention warrant to prevent clashes between police and the presidential security service.”

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A HOUSE DIVIDED: South Korean Investigators Face Standoff With Military Trying To Execute Warrant To Arrest President Yoon Suk Yeol and Search His Residence

A clash of different authorities resulted in a dangerous standoff today (3) in South Korea’s capital Seoul, military personnel blocked police investigators from arresting impeached president Yoon at his residence.

Yonhap News agency reported that Investigators attempting to detain Yoon were able to enter the presidential residence compound but were blocked by the Presidential Guard military unit.

Sputnik reported:

“Earlier, Yonhap stated that investigators from South Korea’s Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) had entered the presidential residence on Friday to execute a detention warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol.

‘The team executing the warrant comprises 30 people from the CIO and 120 police personnel, with 70 waiting outside the residence compound’, the report stated.”

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Is Biden hiding how and why martial law was declared on South Korea?

On December 3rd, Toronto’s The Globe and Mail headlined “South Korea’s President declares martial law, accuses opposition of anti-state activities”, and later that day headlined “South Korean parliament votes to defy president by lifting his declaration of martial law”; but, since then, the crisis has only gotten worse, and will certainly need South Korea’s U.S.-controlled Constitution to be changed. As Hanjoo Lee pointed out on page 262 in the “CONCLUSION” to his Spring 2007 Ph.D thesis, The Major Influences of the U.S. Constitutional Law Doctrines on the Interpretation and Application of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea: Critical Analysis on the Current Constitutional Court’s Decisions and Thoughts of the Necessity of Amendment of the Current Constitution of the Republic of Korea, “The Korean experience aptly shows that political changes precede legal changes. [This profound principle means that before there is even a Constitution, there is politics and political power — the decisions that were made by the individuals who held political power. A constitution doesn’t come from nowhere and no one, but from the possessors of political power, who actually shaped it.] … Cold war ideology based on a zero-sum mentality is outdated. These trends demand new ways of thinking.” Though veiled (for example, his “zero-sum” was a powerful condemnation of America’s demands for South Korea to be even more intensely anti-North-Korea and anti-China and anti-Russia than it is), his implication was clear, that South Korea must break out of the empire of which is a part (a colony), the U.S. empire, before it can TRULY become a democracy. Now, nearly 18 years later, Lee’s analysis is being proven to have been prophetic.

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South Korean Court Issues Arrest Warrant Against Impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol Over Martial Law Attempt

In the midst of heightened tensions with their neighbors to the North of the peninsula, South Korea is going through a phase of instability, with a short-lived Martial law being imposed, and not one, but two Presidents impeached by Parliament.

Now, to cap it off, a Seoul court has issued an arrest warrant against South Korea’s suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law stunt back on 3 December.

BBC reported:

“The warrant comes after Yoon, who is facing several investigations on insurrection and treason charges, ignored three summonses to appear for questioning over the past two weeks.

On Sunday night, investigators sought an arrest warrant for Yoon on charges of insurrection and abuse of power – a move that his lawyer described as ‘illegal’.”

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South Korean Parliament Impeaches President Yoon Suk Yeol In Second Vote, After His Short-Lived Martial Law Decree – Constitutional Court to Decide His Fate

The year of 2024 continues to provide us with earth-shattering developments all over the world.

In South Korea, still reeling from the Martial law decree and the attempted – unsuccessful – closure of the Parliament, back in December, lawmakers voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Yoon vowed today to fight for his political future after he lost the second vote to impeach him.

Reuters reported:

“The Constitutional Court will decide whether to remove Yoon sometime in the next six months. If he is removed from office, a snap election will be called.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was appointed by Yoon, became acting president, while Yoon remains in office but with his presidential powers suspended halfway through his five-year term.”

Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be impeached in South Korea, after Park Geun-hye in 2017.

Yoon even survived a first impeachment vote last Saturday, before some in his party turned on him.

“’Although I am stopping for now, the journey I have walked with the people over the past two and a half years toward the future must never come to a halt. I will never give up’, Yoon said.”

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Kremlin Trolls South Korea & US: ‘Professed Democracy’ Can Morph Into ‘Absolute Chaos’ In Couple Of Hours

The Kremlin in a fresh Wednesday statement appeared to engage in a bit of trolling of South Korea and its Western backers like the US following the prior day’s wild and short-lived martial law events.

“North Korea’s concerns over its security are understandable given the political instability in the South,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, which is somewhat ironic given the West constantly stresses the real threat and source of regional instability is actually Pyongyang. 

Her comments sought to emphasize the unpredictability of democracies supported by Washington. “In my opinion, many have understood why the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)… is so concerned over its security,” she said.

“It’s because they see that in a couple of hours [South Korea] can morph from a professed democracy into absolute chaos, with tanks on the streets, a storming of parliament, popular confrontation and some brute-force tactics,” Zakharova continued. 

This means the north’s vigilance and constant state of war readiness – which has included increased weapons testing of late – is entirely justified, she suggested in her explanation, given the “unpredictable” neighbor to the south.

Just before 5am local time on Wednesday South Korea’s president Yoon Suk Yeol lifted his martial-law declaration after parliament voted unanimously against the measure. Troops had at one point stormed the parliament building, and there were bizarre scenes of lawmakers scaling fences to get back in.

He had argued his drastic move was necessary as his political opponents made the nation vulnerable to North Korean “communist forces” as government couldn’t function. Parliament rejected the rationale.

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South Korea’s 6-Hour Martial Law

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law, suspended the South Korean legislature and banned elected representatives from accessing the National Assembly building using massive police presence.

And then six hours later he rescinded the order.

President Yoon had declared in a public address to the Korean people that the move was to protect a “liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements.”  He said:

“I will restore the country to normalcy by getting rid of anti-state forces as soon as possible.”

But all the members of South Korea’s Parliament voted to reverse Yoon’s edict Tuesday and he then heeded the call. 

The action and rhetoric had evoked the days of the country’s military dictatorships; the language and justification was exactly the same. 

There had been repeated signals that Yoon could declare martial law because the public momentum to impeach him in South Korea was gaining ground.

Yoon is despised by South Koreans for his abuse of power, his wife’s corruption and his vitiation of South Korea’s sovereignty and economic wellbeing to serve U.S. geopolitical interests.

Particularly triggering and enraging for South Koreans has been his enmeshing of South Korea’s military with that of its former colonizer, Japan, through a formal military alliance designed to wage war against China.  This has also entailed engaging in radical historical revisionism and erasure to facilitate this extraordinary coalition. 

Last week 100,000 citizens protested in the streets demanding his immediate resignation — something that received absolutely zero coverage in Western media.  There was still little mention of this in current mainstream Western coverage as a factor  for the short-lived declaration of martial law.

Yoon does not want to lose power, but more importantly the U.S. cannot allow Yoon to lose power: He is essential to shore up alliances, agreements, and an Asian force posture to wage war against China.

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South Korea Avoids a Return to the Bad Old Days

North Korea is a dictatorship, and South Korea is a democracy. That’s one of the most basic pieces of conventional wisdom about modern geopolitics. But it wasn’t always so. From its independence in 1945 to its final democratization in 1987, South Korea suffered from a series of coups d’état and military dictatorships.

On Tuesday night, the ghosts of the bad old days came back. President Yoon Suk Yeol, facing corruption investigations and gridlock in the National Assembly, declared martial law, banning all political activities and independent media. Soldiers stormed the Assembly building as protesters attacked them with fire extinguishers.

A few hours later, Yoon lifted martial law after his own party and the National Assembly unanimously voted to stop military rule. It was the latest in a series of cartoonish, ham-handed coup attempts that failed over the past few years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia, Peru, Russia, Brazil, and elsewhere.

The attempt at a military takeover fell apart soon after it started. In defiance of military orders, 190 members of the National Assembly managed to get into the building. All of them voted to end martial law—under South Korean law, the president must respect such a vote—and soldiers retreated from the building.

Yoon justified military rule by smearing his opponents as North Korean stooges. “I am declaring a state of emergency in order to protect the constitutional order based on freedom and eradicate shameful pro-North Korea anti-state groups that are stealing freedom and happiness of our people,” Yoon said on the YTN television station.

The opposition called Yoon’s move an obviously unconstitutional coup attempt. “Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country. The economy of the Republic of Korea will collapse irretrievably,” opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said in a livestream. “My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the second largest workers association in the country, declared “an indefinite general strike until the Yoon administration steps down.” In its statement, the confederation invoked past military coups in 1961 and 1979.

After decades of strongman rule violent transitions of power, South Korea finally became a democracy following the June Democratic Struggle, a mass uprising in June 1987 that forced military dictator Chun Doo-hwan to accept direct presidential elections and a new constitution.

Over the past few months, power in South Korea has been divided between Yoon, member of the right-wing People Power Party, and the left-wing Democratic Party, which controls the National Assembly. The day before the military takeover, Democratic Party lawmakers voted to reduce the government budget by 4 trillion won ($2.82 billion) against Yoon’s will.

The declaration of martial law seems to have been a long shot attempt by Yoon to break the gridlock. But it may have backfired badly. The attempted takeover “may very well serve against Yoon’s presumed intention to safeguard his rule, by potentially driving South Korean public opinion toward greater support of impeachment,” writes James Park in Responsible Statecraft, where I used to be a reporter.

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