On a late Tuesday night broadcast on December 3rd, 2024, President Yoon Suk Yeol announced an explosive decision: South Korea is under martial law. I found out about it because my father was watching it live, and we were coincidentally awake. But the real question is: What exactly is martial law, and why was this so monumental?
Yoon at the presidential office in Seoul.
Martial Law and Yoon Suk Yeol
By definition, martial law is the replacement of the civilian government with military rule, and civil liberties/legal processes are suspended. It can last for some time or indefinitely, and it’s usually declared during wartime, rebellion, and natural disasters. So why did the South Korean president declare martial law? What exactly happened?
Yoon Suk Yeol is the 13th president of South Korea, and he was elected in 2022. Yoon is part of the People Power Party (PPP), which was previously known as the United Future Party, and it’s a conservative right-wing faction. Like his party, Yoon is a conservative, a sharp contrast with his predecessor, Moon Jae-in. In the extremely narrow election of 2022, he gained support from male voters who disagreed with the rise of women's empowerment, with Yoon even commenting that women faced no discrimination. He also takes a hardline stance against North Korea, and this is the reasoning he gives on the broadcast.
On December 4th, an impeachment motion was introduced but it failed to pass until December 14th, when 204 votes were cast. As a result, Yoon was impeached. Currently, he’s facing an arrest warrant, the first sitting President in South Korea’s history to do so. If he’s found guilty on charges of heading an insurrection, he faces life imprisonment or the death penalty.
Protesters calling for South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol to step down.
Historical Background
A large part of the anger that arose from Yoon’s actions is rooted in the country’s history. After the end of the Japanese occupation, South Korea was liberated from imperial rule. However, the nation remained under the influence of the United States, and the next decades were full of political turmoil. This brings us to May of 1980, when Chun Doo-hwan, an infamous president and dictator, launched a military coup and the citizens in Gwangju protested. After Chun sent the military to suppress these protests, the Gwangju residents created a citizen militia to resist the indiscriminate killing of civilians. They were able to maintain control of the city for six days. Nevertheless, in the face of military weapons, like tanks, the resistance was crushed on May 27th. The number of people killed is unknown, but people of all ages were killed, injured, and left missing. Whether it was a university student or an uncle, those who were taken in were tortured with various methods, all inhumane. Mothers cried out for their daughters to come back and fathers searched for their missing sons; only to see their children’s bodies disfigured from violence or told that their bodies can’t be recovered. It could be said that this event was the stimulant for a full-blown democratic movement during the 1980s.
Taken by Asahi photographer, Katsuo Aoi, this picture depicts students and protestors with buses marching towards the military, on May 20th, 1980.
The similarity that angered people was the fact that Chun Doo-hwan, like Yoon, declared martial law, and the brutality and the suppression of civil rights that happened over 40 years ago is still imprinted upon the nation. The events of May 1980 are still fresh in the minds of South Korean citizens and older people can easily describe the harrowing emotions of fear and grief that envelopes their memory.
Books like Han Kang’s Human Acts can recount the pain and sorrow of those left behind, the struggle of those who fought, and the ruthlessness that happened during this massacre. The novel starts with the voice of Kang Dong-ho, though it uses the second-person narration, referring to “you”. We, the readers, are put in the place of Kang Dong-ho, who works with the dead bodies of university students, writing down information so family members can come and identify them. In one scene, he describes the injuries dealt to a girl’s body, “Stab wounds slash down from her forehead to her left eye, her cheekbone to her jaw, her left breast to her armpit, gaping gashes where the raw flesh shows through.” However, the novel switches narratives from person to person, going from the young middle schooler Dong-ho who searches for his dead friend among the bodies, his friend Jeong-dae who is bound to his rotting remains, to Dong-ho’s coworker Eun-sook, the lone survivor Kim Jin-su who dies by suicide out of guilt, a young woman Seon-ju who underwent torture, and Dong-ho’s grief-stricken mother when she loses her youngest son after the military entered the building where the corpses of the youth laid. Han Kang is a native of Gwangju, and she recalled that when she was twelve, she saw a memorial album of the Gwangju Uprising, which she attests changed her fundamentally. In Human Acts, Kang’s voice is distinct and concise, which conveys the stark emotions felt by the characters, and the reality of what happened.
Soldiers beating up a young man who was pulled off the bus, taken by Katsuo Aoi on May 20th, 1980.
What happens in the present can be a repetition of something from the past. Identification, recognition, and information are necessary, especially in our current times.
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