South Koreans Know What Dictatorship Looks Like

When South Korean legislator Kim Min-seok warned in August that President Yoon Suk-yeol might be plotting to declare martial law, even the most ardent critics of Yoon were skeptical. Of course, the right-wing president was increasingly displaying authoritarian tendencies. In response to his miserably low approval rating, hovering between the high teens and low 20s, as well as mounting corruption allegations against him and his wife, Yoon ordered indiscriminate raids of the offices and residences of liberal politicians and journalists, numerous thinly supported criminal charges against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, and ostentatious military parades.

But still, the idea that Yoon might attempt martial law and a self-coup—where an existing leader seizes dictatorial power—seemed to be too outlandish. It was seen as partisan fodder, unbecoming of a lawmaker of Kim’s stature—a respected former youth leader of the South Korean democracy movement that ended the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan in 1987. South Korea had not seen martial law since its democratic transition, although a declaration of martial law remained a theoretical possibility in case of a wartime emergency in a hypothetical clash with North Korea.

Then it happened. At 10:23 p.m. local time on Dec. 3, Yoon called an unscheduled press conference. In a six-minute statement, Yoon announced that he was declaring an emergency martial law, claiming that the opposition Democratic Party made the National Assembly “a monster trying to destroy liberal democracy” because the liberal party had brought 22 impeachments against officials in his administration and threatened to slash its discretionary budget. Yoon branded his political opponents are “pro-Pyongyang anti-state forces,” in the same rhetoric that South Korea’s military dictators had used to justify their rule.

Within an hour, Gen. Park An-soo was appointed as the commander of the Martial Law Command, which decreed that all political activities in national and local legislatures were prohibited, all media were subject to the control of the Martial Law Command, and public gatherings and rallies were prohibited. Soon, armored cars and helicopters began emerging in the streets of Seoul.