https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-3-2024
"For an astonishing six hours today, South Korea underwent an attempted
self-coup by its unpopular president, Yoon Suk Yeol, only to see the South
Korean people force him to back down as they reasserted the strength of their
democracy.
In an emergency address at nearly 11:00 last night local time, Yoon announced
that he was declaring martial law in South Korea for the first time since 1980,
when special forces under a military dictatorship attacked pro-democracy
activists in the city of Gwangju, leaving about 200 people dead or missing.
South Koreans ended military rule in their country in 1987, writing a new
constitution that made South Korea a republic.
Yoon claimed he had to declare martial law because his political opponents were
sympathizing with communist North Korea. It was a thin pretext.
A member of the conservative People’s Party, Yoon was elected to a five-year
presidential term in 2022 after a misogynistic campaign fueled by young men who
saw equal rights for women— whose average monthly wage is 67.7% of that a man,
according to the
BBC’s Laura Bicker—as reverse discrimination that is taking
away their own rights and opportunities.
Before his election, Yoon had no experience in the National Assembly, and once
he was in office, his popularity slid to record lows. In legislative elections
held last April, voters crushed Yoon’s party, giving opposition parties 192 of
300 seats in the National Assembly. The legislature fought with Yoon over his
budget and launched a number of corruption investigations into Yoon’s allies as
well as his wife.
And so, Yoon declared martial law, bringing the media under his control and
banning political activities, “false propaganda,” “gatherings that incite
social unrest,” and strikes. Police officers formed a blockade around the
National Assembly, and helicopters landed on the roof to prevent lawmakers from
getting inside to overturn Yoon’s declaration.
The South Korean people reacted immediately. Reporting from Seoul, John Yoon of
the
New York Times recounted the story of a real estate agent who watched
President Yoon’s speech, got in his car, and drove for an hour to get to the
National Assembly. The man told journalist Yoon, “I thought, ‘The end has
come,’ so I came out. The president of a country has exerted his power by
force, and its people have come out to protest that. We have to remove him from
power from this point on. He’s in a position where he has to come down.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
