National Assembly's Defense Committee met to question the generals who participated in Yoon Suk-yeol's self coup attempt, which is revealing some truly shocking stuff. Thread:
To arrest key liberal leaders including Lee Jae-myung, the military dispatched the HID unit, the special forces whose main task is to assassinate major North Korean leaders in case of a war. They are normally near the DMZ, but were just outside of Seoul on Dec 3.
The HID unit were not dressed in the ROK military uniform. Instead, they were given a false North Korean uniform. The plan was to have the HID unit either assassinate Lee and others, and if that failed, have the "rescuing" South Korean soldiers to kill both Lee and the HID unit.
The Defense Minister's original plan was to provoke an attack from North Korea, then use that as an excuse to declare martial law. To that end, South Korean military flew several drones over the Pyongyang sky, spraying propaganda fliers. North Korea did not attack, however.
The drone incursion happened in early October. Dem lawmakers say the South Korean military collected the drones that were not shot down, and burned them down to destroy evidence.
Yoon Suk-yeol directly commanded the military at the scene of the National Assembly to arrest the lawmakers. The president personally called Cdr. Gwak Jong-geun and told him: "They don't have quorum yet. Get in there and drag them all out."
During the coup, helicopters carrying special forces headed to the Assembly were held up at the capital no-fly zone, because the Air Force was not aware of the coup plan. In the end, the Air Force never approved the flight; the Army forged the approval order.
Initial preparation for the coup began as far back as July 2023, as the military compiled the reference materials for operations under a martial law situation and produced a manual around that time.
A reminder on how close we were. The martial law command was planning to have two more special forces located outside of Seoul to march to the capital on the second day of martial law. If the Assembly did not vote that night to lift the martial law, many more soldiers would have been in Seoul, with a potential massacre on our hands.
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PPP leader Han Dong-hun and PM Han Deok-su hold a joint press conference, claim that Yoon will not be involved in governance including foreign policy, and will be given a timeline for resignation.
This may as well be a second coup attempt by the People Power Party. Republic of Korea has a constitution; there is no legal way for the president to loan out power and reconfigure the constitution on the fly.
How is this even supposed to work? Who represents Korea in the world stage? Who greets visiting foreign dignitaries (not that anyone is coming soon)? Who signs bills and executive orders? An insane move whose sole purpose is to not impeach a coup monger.
Looking back to the Park Geun-hye impeachment in 2016-17, it took about three weeks from the news of the Choi Sun-sil scandal breaking, with three 1m-2m people rallies each week, before the National Assembly passed the impeachment bill. The liberals needed nearly 30 defections.
Here, because of how the events unfolded, a quick impeachment vote had to be done. It would have been ridiculous for the Assembly to wait 3 weeks after a coup attempt. But the 8 vote deficit was always there, and overcoming it in 2-3 days was always going to be a challenge.
Time is decisively on the side of liberals. Yoon is an international laughingstock and pariah; his peers are now leaders like Bolsanero, Erdogan and Orban. Korean stock market is going to hell, business relations are in danger. Domestically, even the conservative media turned.
Review of the Assembly Hall security camera shows the military attempting to arrest the Speaker of the Assembly and the Democratic Party chairman before they could head into the Main Hall to vote to end martial law.
Yoon says he will lift the martial law as soon as he can have quorum on the State Council in the morning. Meanwhile, the National Assembly is preparing an article of impeachment.
State Council, presided by Yoon, just lifted the martial law following the National Assembly vote.
The immediate threat of violence seems to have passed, as we are starting to see the fallout. Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice resigned, refusing to participate in the enforcement of martial law, calling it "mutiny."
Reports say Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyeon suggested declaring the martial law. Prime Minister Han Deok-su, whose role is similar to US Vice President, was not aware of the plan.
Let's be clear: This was a self-coup attempt by Yoon Suk-yeol. The only saving grace was that like everything that Yoon has done, it was done in the most incompetent manner possible. He had no real control over the military, and TV news and internet continued to operate normally.
For the first time since the end of military dictatorship in 1987, President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law. Follow this account for live coverage.
In a statement, Yoon claimed that the National Assembly 국회's 22 impeachment attempts of government officials and reduction of government budget amounted to "an anti-state activity that foments treason." Yoon said the emergency martial law was necessary to "protect free Republic of Korea and eliminate the pro-North Korean, anti-state forces."
In response, the opposition Democratic Party summoned its lawmakers to the National Assembly. Han Dong-hun, leader of the ruling People Power Party, also said he will stop the martial law.
Our Thursday read is about the "New Right" school of history, a discredited right-wing revisionism that gained a new lease of life under the Yoon Suk-yeol presidency.
The New Right school emerged in early 2000s as a reaction to Roh Moo-hyun's presidency, which saw the rise of South Korea's leftist historiography that saw Korea's journey from colonialism to advanced democracy as a long march toward freedom against various oppressors.
South Korea's conservative historians, led by economic historians Lee Yeong-hun and An Byeong-jik, saw this as a denial of South Korea's stand against communism and North Korea. Their New Right theory was the mirror image of the left's history: a continuous march of capitalism.