By Michael Breen
In the wake of Tuesday night’s on-off declaration of martial law, as bewilderment turned to anger and the nation, it seemed, realized President Yoon Suk Yeol would likely be impeached for treason, one or two people voiced an opinion which I had not expected: Can’t we stop insulting President Yoon Suk Yeol?, they said. At least until we know for sure what his reasons were?
I could have argued. In fact, I could have laughed. But I’ve been married long enough to know that there is often merit in opinions that are the opposite of my own and that the only way to find out what it might be is to contemplate, rather than immediately react.
I will add that this was made easier because the first person who said this to me was not a fan of President Yoon. She was defending the office, not the person.
At the same time, something was puzzling me. That was the silence of the president himself. Why didn’t he come out and resign, or perhaps plead for understanding and mercy?
I imagined him, in his bunker, explaining to the first lady how his dramatic move to protect her — inspired, I wondered, by U.S. President Joe Biden’s fatherly overexercise of his power to pardon his son — had failed. But she, knowing he had put her before his work, was reassured that he loved her.
But now that things are calming down, I’m beginning to wonder if I had missed something and that there was some method in this presidential madness. Here is that line of reasoning.
As former special forces chief, Chun In-bum, wrote in his column in this newspaper yesterday, two types of martial law are permitted in this country. Both give the government extensive power to suspend normal freedoms and arrest people without warrants, restrict media, ban demonstrations and so on.
One type, known as security martial law, may be directly imposed by the president. We may imagine, for example, that if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were mobilizing to attack and if intelligence authorities learned that his special forces and agitators were already in place here, this type of martial law might well be justified.
The other type is emergency martial law. In this case, if the president considers the state to be sufficiently threatened, he has to notify the National Assembly and follow its decision. If a majority of lawmakers disagree with him and vote against martial law, he has to immediately repeal it.
A lot of commentators considered Tuesday night’s martial law to have been bungled. Yoon is so incompetent, he didn’t even do that right, people said. Why were the troops at the Assembly carrying rifles without ammunition? Why did they let the Assembly vote? Why did they then suddenly leave? Were they resisting orders? Come to think of it, why weren’t troops in broadcast and newspaper offices — like they were back in 1980? Why wasn’t the Internet down? Why was there not a single police or military roadblock in the entire country?
There may be a simple explanation. Perhaps Yoon let the lawmakers vote, knowing they would reject martial law, and knowing he would be back on TV repealing it before the cock crowed.
There is good reason to think this was his thinking. In his announcement of martial law, it was obvious that the national crisis he had in mind came from his frustration with the opposition's behavior in the Assembly. He didn’t conjure up a fake crisis to suppress them. He directly called them an anti-state, pro-North Korean den of criminals. He basically said, “Hey, commie gangsters, I want to shut you down and I need you to vote on it to give me permission.”
Unless he is a lunatic or a drunkard, he knew all along what the outcome would be.
That leads us to the obvious question — what was the point? To which, the most obvious answer was that this was a shot across the bows, a political ploy to try and make the opposition behave itself.
Our reaction to this will be varied. It depends more on our prior political dislikes than our positive preferences. If we don’t like Yoon, we’re appalled. If we don’t like the opposition, perhaps Yoon now appears in a more positive light. The third way is to try and be objective.
Speaking objectively, the Democratic Party of Korea is a disgrace. In its longing for power, it barely conceals its contempt for the law and the institutions of democracy. It is contemptuous of elections that do not go their way. That is apparent in the way it has sought to impeach Yoon from the outset.
Before you tell me I’m prejudiced, I will say that I see no evidence that the ruling side is any better when it is in opposition.
I should say that Yoon’s pretend move — if my theory holds — at martial law to control his political opponents reveals a similar contempt for our democracy in this country.
Unlike an earlier president, Park Geun-hye, who was impeached in 2017 only because her own party’s leadership was unwilling to side with her, it appears that on this occasion Yoon’s party will back him. This may well save him.
If it doesn’t, he will probably be impeached and end up with a long sentence in prison — where he will have time to contemplate the irony of having been the prosecutor who pursued the case against Park — as he waits for his successor to pardon him.
As appalled as I am by this week’s events, I would rather see more of a forgive, unite and democracy-upgrade approach.
Frankly, we need politicians who are better than this and can give a greater measure of dignity to the offices they hold in a manner that the people of this country deserve.
Michael Breen ([email protected]) is the author of "The New Koreans."
English (United States) ·