Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024 was destined to come into conflict with the opposition Democratic party, which secured control of the 300-seat south Korean legislature in the election that took place last April. Since then, the Democratic party has blocked legislation and held up the national budget.
Government-affiliated agencies have embarked on a witch-hunt against the opposition, levelling charges of corruption; and anti-government elements have charged the president’s wife over questionable gifts of designer handbags.
In 2016, President Park Geun-hye was impeached after massive demonstrations by business professionals, families, workers and students at weekends. She was subsequently tried and sent to prison for several years on charges of bribery and influence peddling. Though Yoon has promised not to, he may declare a second emergency, which would have dire consequences. The army would come under severe public pressure to disobey its commander-in-chief, leading to a stock market crash and plummeting business confidence.
Yoon was elected in 2022 by the narrowest of margins. Parliament overruled Yoon’s martial law decree, following which, within hours, Yoon withdrew it and returned the troops to their barracks. On 8 December he was impeached.
More than 70 percent of the public want Yoon to be removed, and the crisis has precipitated massive protests in central Seoul which are threatening to become a torrent across the whole of south Korea.
The USA has maintained silence, though it is unbelievable that, with its 28,000 troop presence and vast network of intelligence infrastructure in the centre of Seoul, it did not have advance warning of Yoon’s provocative martial law declaration.
South Korea has always been a puppet of imperialism. It sent several thousand soldiers to Vietnam to help the US predatory war against the Vietnamese people. Yoon for his part has performed his role as a US poodle, supporting US foreign policy everywhere, from the Indo-Pacific to Ukraine.
In fact, it is as certain as it can be at the present time that Yoon declared martial law in consultation with the USA, which is concerned that a new south Korean presidential election is only too likely to be won by a candidate from the opposition Democratic party who, in turn, could ask the USA to hand over its control of the south Korean army to a south Korean commander. It is becoming increasingly difficult for south Korean politicians to maintain that they are presiding over a sovereign democracy while their own armed forces are under the command of a general from the US armed forces.
Such a demand would be one step nearer to south Korea demanding that the USA remove its troop presence entirely.
Such is anti-US sentiment, amounting to hatred of the presence of its troops, that public pressure could force the government to take such a step. That is the nightmare of the USA, for it could destroy its military strategy in that part of the world, spreading from Russia to China.
The US strategy is risky and fraught with danger, for if the USA refused to comply with such a demand (a very likely scenario), this would in all likelihood lead to a revolutionary uprising in south Korea that would sweep away the US troop presence, as well as the south Korean ruling comprador class. There would follow, after a while, the reunification of Korea under completely different conditions than those envisaged by US imperialism.
At last, the Korean people, forcibly separated by US armed might for 76 years, will be able to exercise their rights as a truly sovereign, independent people and take their place in the comity of nations.
Hasten the day. We wish the Korean people success.
Long live independent and sovereign Korea!
Death to imperialism!
