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A surreal drama that unfolded in 2024

Published: 08 Dec. 2024, 19:33

Kang Joo-an
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

We witnessed the unbelievable and unimaginable twice under the Yoon Suk Yeol presidency. There was the horrific crowd crush during Halloween two years ago that left 159 young merrymakers dead. It was hard to believe that the scenes captured on social media of people being crushed to death could happen in today’s downtown Seoul district that has police and firefighting rescue forces nearby.

The nighttime TV address of Yoon declaring martial law on Dec. 3 was even more surreal. There were photos of tanks roaming around in downtown Seoul. What we hoped to be fake news turned out to be real when the news showed armed soldiers arriving at the National Assembly in helicopters and breaking windows to get in.

The sight of armed special forces wrestling with civilians brought up the horrid nightmares of Gwangju in May 1980, where students and civilians protesting martial law had been brutally gunned down. Fortunately, soldiers today did not attack civilians. The 1st Airborne Special Forces Brigade, the 707th Special Mission Group under the Army Special Warfare Command and the 35th Special Mission Battalion of the Capital Defense Command mobilized under the latest martial law are Korea’s most elite armed forces.

During the last martial law execution in Gwangju, civilian casualties were severe because of the deployment of the airborne commando strenuously trained for raids, irregular warfare and reconnaissance activities. The trepidation remains vivid through films like “1987: When the Day Comes,” “Taxi Driver” and “12.12: The Day.”

The terrifying soldiers landed at Yeouido on the night of Dec. 3, 2024 in peacetime under self-dubbed democracy champion Yoon. He had attended the May 18 Gwangju Uprising memorial during the same month in 2022 when he was sworn in and sang along the iconic democracy movement theme song, “March for the Beloved,” as the first conservative president. On his side was his first Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon. Yet the same man resorted to martial law and sent gunmen to occupy the National Assembly. Soldiers thankfully tried to avoid any clashes with civilians, so as not to revisit the traumatic history when they were instrumental for military suppression in Gwangju.

Soldiers mobilized for the repression in Gwangju were summoned to testify in the courts against former coup generals-turned-presidents Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae-woo. They dreaded recalling their experiences. They had led a wretched life for nearly two decades for following the kill orders from their commanders. One of the top brass of the Airborne Brigade who testified after a long period persuasion later committed suicide. He could have been dogged by a sense of guilt for giving his young men the order to fire.

What is more loathsome under the incumbent administration is the lack of accountability after preposterous disasters. Despite the death toll of 159 during the Itaewon crowd crush, no one at the top of the hierarchy in the police or the Cabinet took responsibility. The findings related to the martial law night are equally despairing. It was first thought that the president had bypassed a Cabinet meeting before declaring martial law, which requires a Cabinet endorsement. If so, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and the Cabinet members would have been equally liable for Yoon’s heedless act. But we later found that a Cabinet meeting was held and yet none of the ministers were able to stop the president.

On Dec. 4, the Financial Times ran a headline that said that the Korean parliament voted to block the president’s declaration of martial law But its finding is half-true as most lawmakers from the governing party stayed away from the National Assembly premises, despite the danger of military occupation.

On Saturday, Yoon publicly apologized for turning to the last-resort presidential action of declaring martial law “out of desperation” and vowed not to shy away from the legal and moral repercussions. As he promised to leave his fate in the hands of the party including his term, Han made it clear that the president cannot be trusted to handle “normal” executive duties. President Yoon inevitably may be headed for a disgraceful early exit. Whether it be an impeachment or a descent to being a vegetative state, it looks almost certain that Yoon won’t be attending the upcoming Gwangju memorial in May to sing the tune of “March for the Beloved.”

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.