KR South Korean president declares emergency martial law, accusing opposition of anti-state activities

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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared an “emergency martial law,” Tuesday accusing the country’s opposition of controlling the parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government with anti-state activities.

Yoon made the announcement during a televised briefing. He declared the step as critical for defending the country’s constitutional order. It wasn’t immediately clear how the steps would affect the country’s governance and democracy.

Yoon since taking office in 2022 had struggled to push his agendas against an opposition-controlled parliament.

 

[RodgerDodger]

How can you just vote out of martial law?

What? Do you think South Korea is someplace like Michigan where all power is invested in one person regardless of what the legislature and courts say.

 

[Tyrannosaurus rex]

You guys realize this occurred just days after the rebellion in Syria? it's almost like the 3 big boys are playing all their cards to get an advantage before the shooting starts.

 

[卐ㅤㅤ]

@Null I feel like this deserves a homepage pin

 

[RodgerDodger]

bite your tongue, I believe the BTS army has just arrived like the riders of Rohan outside the parliament gates to restore martial law,

yes, I believe we are receiving confirmation of this right now we have a live feed now

Spoiler: LIVE FOOTAGE OF BTS ARMY AT THE GATES

View attachment 6711554

Ummm dudes, BTS is IN the Army. In fact since they were restricted from frontline DMZ duty, they might actually be surrounding the parliament.

 

[Not Really Here]

And this is why you don't make phone calls while drunk, and President of Korea.

 

[RodgerDodger]

But are the k-pops okay? Are they safe? The World Watches!

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

It's noon there already and no more news? That's it? No consequences?

 

[TaimuRadiu]

What the fuck is going on in the Republic of Samsung?

 

[Not Really Here]

What the fuck is going on in the Republic of Samsung?

When you end the first series of a K-drama, you have to go big, or your audience will get distracted by romances.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Also waiting for thunkpieces blaming Trump for softening democratic norms worldwide leading directly to this. There should be a couple within the next 24 hours.

Close enough to start:

The Atlantic: South Korea’s Warning for Washington (archive)

President Yoon’s seemingly failed bid to consolidate power under martial law is a cautionary tale for Washington on the eve of a second Trump administration. Sometimes, incompetent authoritarians botch plots to seize power. They still damage democratic institutions and norms in the process. And sometimes, the power grabs succeed—because presidential democracy is not protected by constitutions written with magical ink. Rather, it can survive its moments of greatest peril through the actions of brave people who cherish ideals more than power. As Linz warned, such people are not always in plentiful supply.

 

[Romeo]

Probable Explanation​

Here's a take on the fuller picture by a Korean Redditor (so take it with a grain of salt):

Quick rundown as a Korean: (South) Korea's two party system has been getting corrupted over time ever since its Democratic movement of the 80's.

Today is basically a power play between two corrupt party officials with Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party leader (questionable gang/mafia affiliation history, tons of people dead surrounding him, and potential North Korean connection) and Yoon Suk-yeol (current sitting president, conservative affiliation. dumb, impotent, potential connection to shaman who dictates policy for him, drunkard).

They've been in a hostile (competition) where one does shitty thing they other ends up doing shittier thing to nullify whatever the negative press may happen, all the while gatekeeping all the other legitimate proper candidates by sabotaging and sending them to jail. Yoon only became the president because Lee was also much more unpopular the last election.

But the scale has been tipping ever so slightly to Lee Jae-myung after the last set of corruption charges went not guilty verdict and his party was emboldened by that to create a set of laws that will basically make him bulletproof to all future charges.

Yoon panicked here and declared martial law to basically end Lee before Lee ends him.

This will not end well for Yoon since he does not have a popular support or the military, but Lee is basically a much worse version of Duterte so the hope is Yoon gets (rid of) Lee before he gets impeached himself.

Archive

To summarize, imagine President Yeltsin who listens to Rasputin trying to take down Lula da Silva (who has led Brazil to ruin, had corruption charges lobbied against him, but they were dropped thanks to a corrupt Supreme Court, and won election again). That is what is happening in South Korea.

---

Lolcow Nation​

Democracy has pretty much never worked for South Korea. The country can be summed up as a de facto feudal oligarchic corporatocracy since its inception, ruled by noble families in the form of chaebols (named after the Japanese 'zaibatsu,' they are conglomerates that are inherited from the father to the children, i.e. Samsung, LG, Hyundai, etc.)

Edit: Goddamn it, (possibly) got ninja-ed by @1Tonka_Truck

Within the last five elected Korean Presidents (not including Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn), three of them were charged of corruption, with two having served prison sentences and one of them killing himself "out of guilt."

2003-2008	Roh Moo-hyun		Democratic (Liberal)	Killed himself due to impending bribery charges.
2008-2013	Lee Myung-bak		Saenuri (Conservative)	Went to prison for tax evasion, embezzlement, and bribery on a 17-year sentence. Only served 2 because of a pardon by Yoon.
2013-2017	Park Guen-hye		Saenuri (Conservative)	Impeached and went to prison for giving favors to a shaman aide and listening to her advice on a 25-year sentence. Only served 4 because of a pardon by Yoon. Also the daughter of military dictator Park Chung-hee.
2017-2022	Moon Jae-in		Democratic (Liberal)	Nothing yet...
2022-present	Yoon Suk-yeol		People's Power (successor to Saenuri; Conservative)	Install martial law to overthrow his opponent after his opponent's party got away from corruption charges. May get impeached and imprisoned.

If you want to go further, the legacy of Roh's predecessor Kim Dae-jung remained unscathed. Dae-jung's predecessor Kim Young-sam left the presidency at a 6% approval rate because of South Korea's failure to handle the 1997 Asian financial crisis and several man-made disasters. Within the last four presidents before Young-sam, three were military dictators or affiliated with the dictatorship (Roh Tae-woo, Chun Doo-hwan, Park Chung-hee), with the only non-dictator having been overthrown in a coup (Choi Kyu-hah).

Park Chung-hee overthrew Yun Po-sun in a military coup, and Po-sun was elected President after South Korea's 1st President Rhee Syngman lived in exile in Hawaii after the April Revolution.

So to summarize, out of South Korea's official 13 presidents, 4 were criminally charged and went through prison sentences (of which 2 were military dictators), 1 committed suicide, 1 got assassinated (Park Chung-hee), 2 got overthrown in a military coup, 1 lived in exile, 1 may be impeached and charged, 1 left an unpopular legacy, and 2 left an unscathed legacy.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

The Viet Minh was always captured by communist shitheels

Sure, which were ironically more amenable to the United States than the Soviets or Chinese, and were in fact more amenable to the United States than most of the politicians in the South. Communism isn't a monolithic entity. There are "good" commies, as in, there are communists that don't destabilize their region and adhere to international conventions. The best example of this today is, well, Vietnam, which is working with the US to help contain Chinese aggression. A fantastic historical example is Yugoslavia under Tito. He didn't cause problems, and even helped NATO root out and destroy various communist factions that attempted to use Yugoslavia as a base of operations to destabilize Europe. Yugoslavia spent most of the cold war buying American military equipment to deter a possible Soviet invasion. If the US had worked with the Viet Minh to transition to an independent Vietnam, it would've absolutely ended better than the quagmire that the Vietnam War was.

The argument that Diem was a corrupt dictator is just one of those lefty talking points that never die.

Lol. Lmao. No he was truly, comically corrupt. He had soldiers stuffing ballot boxes, """appropriated""" land for """land reform""" (see: stole land from private land owners) while simultaneously exempting the Catholic Church, the largest private land owner in the country, from land reform. He exempted Catholics from labor impressment, he literally sold public offices to the highest bidder. Shit, it's a miracle he lasted until 1963. There was the barracks mutiny in 1960 and in 1962 the Republic of Vietnam Air Force tried to kill him by straight up just bombing the presidential palace. The dude was an absolute, straight up piece of shit.

Nixon crushing the commies in record time

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be in reference to. I would argue the opposite, in fact I have argued the opposite academically. It's my opinion that, even though the war had gutted the United States and RVN, that even in 1970 it was winnable, and that Nixon's failure to commit to the 1970 invasion of Cambodia directly led to the collapse of the war effort. I firmly believe that if Nixon had the balls to just unleash the mean green kill machine and allow the US to occupy Cambodia, and eventually probably Laos, that the war ends on terms favorable to the RVN and United States by 1972.

To give you an idea of how close it was, there are documents declassified by the Vietnamese government detailing just how dire the situation in summer 1970 was. The Ho Chi Minh Trail has effectively collapsed, millions of tons of war materiel had been destroyed or captured, thousands of PAVN soldiers and NLF fighters had been killed or captured. The situation was so dire that the North Vietnamese government was in the process of debating the terms of what would effectively be a surrender. Then, you know what happened? The Americans just stopped. Nixon had put an arbitrary limit of American advance at 60km. Like a fucking Deus Ex Machina, the Americans just stopped advancing, and instead of crushing the communist presence in Cambodia and dismantling the ability for the PAVN to support their operations in the South, upwards of sixty thousand communists were able to escape to the north and west, and just wait until the Americans left to reoccupy the area.

 

[Kulee Baba]

The more I just glance at Yoon's tenure the more I'm just being led to believe that South Korea is one of the most batshit crazy countries..

>We need to be Pro-West. Our enemy is the Chinese and North Koreans
>NOOOO DON'T YOU DARE BE AMICABLE TO THOSE JAPANESE DOGS
I might be mistaken but I'm pretty sure the Philippines had significantly way worse treatment from Japan but the Pinoys don't hold a damn grudge. Yoon's mistake was ever thinking he wouldn't get fucked over.

 

[National Defense Advocate]

Happening Happened and Cancelled and I didn't even need to rise from my slumber.

 

[Near]

My boy got that Prigozhin phone call with the code phrase "Nothing ever happens" and ceased all activity.

 

[>tfw no Asian gf]

Philippines had significantly way worse treatment from Japan but the Pinoys don't hold a damn grudge.

Eh, you have to remember that the Philippines were occupied by Japan for a relatively brief period of time during WW2, in contrast Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and before that it had been a vassal state for a while, the Imperial Japanese commited all manner of atrocities during their time in Korea that left many scars on the people and land.

 

[Thiletonomics]

So what's the over/under on how long it will take Yoon to get impeached, like how Peru ex-President Pedro Castillo got kicked out of office after attempting a similar coup attempt?

 

[Cuckoman]

Eh, you have to remember that the Philippines were occupied by Japan for a relatively brief period of time during WW2, in contrast Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and before that it had been a vassal state for a while, the Imperial Japanese commited all manner of atrocities during their time in Korea that left many scars on the people and land.

All very interesting but we all know the real reason.
Johnny Somali awakened all those dark memories and memed them so hard it broke their collective mind as a country, reminding them of how it was when their country was someone elses bitch.

This has Johnny Somalis fingerprints all over it. You can not convince me otherwise.

 

[Gondolindrim]

Begging for Jan 6 2: Electric Boogaloo, but this time good because it'll be Dems doing it...I guess?

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

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Begging for Jan 6 2: Electric Boogaloo, but this time good because it'll be Dems doing it...I guess?

Supporting a kleptocratic oligarchy to own the chuds