On the night of December 3, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted to perpetrate a coup d'état. He declared martial law and suspended the activity of the National Assembly, which was soon surrounded by soldiers. What on earth has happened in South Korea?
Category
🗞
NoticiasTranscripción
00:00Now, our National Assembly has become a group of criminals, and we are praying for the conquest of the liberal democratic system by paralyzing the country's judicial and administrative system through legal dictatorship.
00:13Dear citizens, I hereby declare a state of emergency in order to eradicate the despicable Chinese-North Korean anti-national forces that threaten the freedom of the Republic of Korea and plunder the freedom and happiness of our people, and to uphold the order of freedom and democracy.
00:35What a night. South Korean President Yoon Seok-yol appears to have lost his mind.
00:40On 3 December, Yoon suddenly declared martial emergency law throughout the country.
00:47At times, South Korea's democratic future hung in the balance. We're talking about a full-fledged
00:52attempt at a coup d'etat. No holds barred. No half measures. An attempt that will probably
00:57see this president in court, and perhaps also in jail, sooner rather than later.
01:01It was, however, a botched, meaningless coup in which many
01:04senior military officers had to find out what was happening on television.
01:10Be that as it may, this is the first time martial law has been declared in South Korea,
01:14since the one declared following the assassination of President Park Chung-hee on 27 October 1979.
01:2045 years have passed and obviously these days everything is different.
01:24And yes, it's true that politics in South Korea usually always has a dash of show,
01:28and a good splash of drama. However, this time the president has crossed all the red lines.
01:33Can't believe I'm seeing martial law declaration in my lifetime. Shock,
01:37confusion among South Koreans. Martial law implies the suspension of political rights,
01:41freedom of the press, political associations and the right to demonstrate. In this case,
01:46an attempt was even made to suspend parliament.
01:48Which is the reason we could all see images of soldiers arriving at the National Assembly.
01:53Following the declaration of martial law, the armed forces were given special powers to detain,
01:57seize and search any citizen without a warrant. We're talking about a madness that has caught
02:02everyone by surprise and that, on top of that, with South Korea's own martial law in hand,
02:06has been declared completely illegal. Why? Because none of the conditions that the law
02:11itself establishes for martial status were fulfilled. Look at this.
02:15Emergency martial law shall be declared by the president when there are belligerency or
02:19serious disturbances of social order that considerably impede the performance of the
02:23administrative and judicial functions of the state in time of war, incident or other equivalent
02:28national emergency. Obviously, there is no active war, no equivalent incident and no national
02:34emergency in South Korea. So how is it possible that the president would embark on such nonsense?
02:42Well, in this video we're not only going to tell you what happened during a tense night that will
02:45go down in the Korean history books, but above all, what exactly it took to get to this unfortunate
02:50situation that, to the delight of Beijing and Pyongyang, has put the entire constitutional
02:55and democratic framework of South Korea at risk. We're facing a serious, very serious decision
03:00by a cornered president. But why did Yun Suk-yol decide to put his country's democracy in check?
03:06What led the president to make such a radical decision? How on earth did it come to this?
03:10Well, we're about to tell you all this and more in detail in this video.
03:18VisualPolitik community, the declaration of martial law by the South Korean president was
03:22no joke. Let's first tell you exactly what happened, and then we'll get into why it happened
03:27and how on earth it got to this point. What I'm going to tell you now are the facts as they
03:31happened just a few hours ago. Shortly before 11 pm on the 3rd of December, President Yun made a
03:39surprise appearance to announce the declaration of martial law. In his own words, his goal was
03:44to defend South Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and thus eradicate the
03:48pro-North Korean and anti-state forces that were plundering freedom. Who is Yun referring to?
03:54Basically, the opposition. The president's idea was to eliminate the functions of the
03:58National Assembly, which is controlled precisely by the opposition. And what would come next? Well,
04:03we don't know. Nobody knows. But nothing good. Let's just say that the president seems to be
04:08thinking along these lines. Parliament does not support me. I'm going to declare a martial state
04:13and suspend their activity. Soon they'll know who's in charge in South Korea. And from that
04:17point on, the images that this whole mess left us with were formidable.
04:21Shortly after the declaration of martial law, Army General Park Ahn Soo, who was appointed
04:28martial law commander, issued a six-point decree basically suspending freedom of the press,
04:33political freedom and also the activity of the parliament itself. Therefore, minutes later,
04:38dozens of Army Special Forces units landed inside the National Assembly complex from helicopters,
04:43with the intention of surrounding and isolating this building. Some soldiers even went so far
04:48as to enter the interior of the Assembly by breaking windows, an image that will be very
04:52difficult to erase for many years and one that has already made history. You could say that,
04:57in a way, we are facing an unusual Korean January 6th, but on steroids.
05:02As you can imagine, there were tense scenes inside the Assembly. Many of the people inside
05:07used tables and chairs to barricade the doors in an attempt to deter the army from trying to reach
05:11the chamber. And why, you may ask? Because 190 legislators, including the Speaker of the National
05:17Assembly, Woo Won-shik, had gained access to the chamber. Thanks to this fact, a little after
05:22midnight, the President of the National Assembly convened an emergency plenary session with the
05:26sole purpose of lifting this illegal martial law. The 190 legislators, who fortunately were
05:32present in the Assembly, out of a total of 300, voted unanimously to end the presidential decree.
05:39And this was perhaps the most critical moment. If the military obeyed the Assembly as established
05:44by Korean law, everything would have been a bad scare. Otherwise, well, nobody knows what would
05:49have happened. Fortunately, the military began to leave the parliament and after four o'clock
05:56in the morning, they all returned to their bases. And the fact is that we're talking about a coup
06:00attempt that not even the President's party, the People's Power Party, supported. Indeed,
06:05its leader, Han Dong-hoon, came out from the very beginning to radically oppose the President's
06:10decision and even called for a confrontation. It was 155 minutes that launched the whole country
06:22and half the world in suspense. The South Korean won, the local currency plummeted to 2,009 lows
06:29and so did the financial markets. Nevertheless, although parliament acted very quickly to stop
06:34the President's madness, martial law could not be lifted automatically, so the uncertainty
06:38lasted a little longer. And you see, it is the President who had to reconvene the
06:45Council of State to enforce the suspension. The hours passed and that moment didn't come
06:50and didn't come. Until finally, as I said, at about four o'clock in the morning,
06:54Yoon Seok-yol appeared on television.
07:25In total, about five hours. That's how long President Yoon's coup attempt lasted. It was
07:31an attempt to dodge a parliament that he doesn't control and that is making it very difficult,
07:35if not impossible, for him to move forward with his political plans. But what if I told you that
07:40the opposition's parliamentary deadlock is not the only reason Yoon lost his mind and attempted
07:44this coup? We're going to tell you the real story behind all this. A story that has been dragging
07:48on for a long time and that ended up blowing up last night. Listen up.
07:55THE ULTIMATE ACT OF LOVE
08:00By now many of you may be wondering what was the final straw that made the South Korean
08:04President attempt a coup or self-coup in 2024. Well, the limit for Yoon seems to have been the
08:10cut in the public budget for 2025, announced by the opposition a few days ago.
08:16ASSEMBLY CLASH LOOMS AS OPPOSITION PUSHES VOTE ON 4 TRILLION WON BUDGET CUT.
08:20BUDGET CUT INCLUDES 20.9 BILLION WON REDUCTION IN YOON GOVERNMENT'S CONFIDENTIAL FUNDS
08:25Confidential funds are monies set aside for secret expenses that government agencies may
08:30use for serious crime surveillance activities that require strict confidentiality.
08:38In fact, according to the Yoon government, this money is earmarked, for example,
08:42among other possibilities, to combat drug-related crimes,
08:45cybercrime and other digital sex crimes involving deepfake technology, which are on the rise.
08:51Precisely for this reason, as you saw at the beginning of the video,
08:54in the Declaration of Martial Law, the President said that the National Assembly is a den of
08:58criminals. In his view, the opposition is blocking his fight against drugs and sex crimes,
09:03simply to try to erode his power. What's more, he could not exercise his presidential veto on
09:08that Assembly resolution, a power that exists in South Korea for certain cases,
09:12and that this president has used several times for his own personal and family benefit.
09:16And take note because things are heating up here.
09:19Yoon vetoes three bills, including special probe targeting First Lady. It marked the 11th time
09:24that Yoon has exercised his veto power since taking office in May 2022, and a total of 24
09:29bills have been rejected amid ongoing tensions between the opposition-controlled National
09:34Assembly and Yoon. And let's see, it's true that his government has not had any
09:38leeway from the Assembly. Everything on this president's agenda has come up against roadblocks.
09:42The opposition has even attempted 22 impeachments against officials appointed by this government.
09:47And not only has the situation not improved, but it has gotten worse.
09:51Since last June alone, there have been 10 such motions. But at the end of the day,
09:55democracy is like that. Political conflicts have to be resolved within democratically elected
09:59bodies. And if you don't have the support of these bodies, tough luck, you're screwed.
10:04This president forgot that. The recent case, and this surely contributed to igniting the powder
10:09keg, involved the Democratic Party, the main opposition party, maneuvering to dismiss both
10:13the head of the state Board of Audit and Inspection and three prosecutors who acquitted the president's
10:18wife, Kim Kyung-hee, for an alleged stock manipulation offense. And in this story,
10:25love has a lot to do with it. In fact, this is probably the main reason for everything that
10:30happened. Yes, it all comes down to love. The First Lady has been embroiled in scandals
10:35practically since Yoon became president of the country. We're talking about all kinds of scandals,
10:39from relatively minor to more serious ones. Among the less serious, to give you two examples,
10:44are allegations that Kim plagiarized her master's thesis and that she lied about her past as a
10:50nightclub hostess. And among the most serious are allegations that the president's wife and
10:54her mother made huge profits by manipulating the share prices of Deutsch Motors, an import
10:59company in the country. In fact, take a look at this news item.
11:03DEUTSCH MOTORS STOCK FRAUDSTER CALLED PRESIDENT V1, FIRST LADY V2
11:07And that's not all. The first lady is also accused of allegedly receiving a bribe from
11:11a Korean-American pastor in September 2022, after Yoon took office as president. And this,
11:17logically, is only what has come to light. In fact, on this occasion, Kim was secretly
11:22recorded by that pastor, apparently accepting a Christian Dior handbag valued at more than $2,200.
11:28Some images even ended up uploaded to this very platform,
11:32to YouTube, and the president did not hesitate to label the whole thing as a trap by the opposition.
11:40The problem is that the wife scandals did not stop. They were, believe me, a constant drip.
11:45And naturally, when the 2024 legislative elections were approaching in Yoon's party,
11:50the People's Power Party started to get nervous.
11:53So what did they do? Well, in February, the party forced Yoon to give a pre-recorded hour
11:58and a half interview, in which he would supposedly settle all his wife's problems
12:01with clear and detailed explanations. The result? He spoke for 7 minutes on the subject,
12:06and in an ambiguous way, and people were left with the same doubts they had at the beginning.
12:11If not, even more serious doubts. Even more so when, on top of that,
12:15the presidential office has consistently done everything possible to block a formal investigation
12:19against the First Lady. How do they do that? With their veto power.
12:23As we saw earlier, the president has even vetoed three times a National Assembly bill,
12:28seeking to open a special investigation into his wife. For him, this is nothing more than
12:33a political witch hunt. The opposition wants to overthrow him, and for that,
12:37they use what he loves the most, his wife, as a weapon.
12:40But of course, the question is, if he is so sure that Kim, his wife, has done nothing wrong,
12:45that she is not corrupt and that she hasn't committed financial crimes,
12:48why is he so determined to try to prevent her from being investigated?
12:52Well, there are opinions for all tastes here.
12:57The fact is, with all these scandals and a political management that's, with all things
13:01considered, it's no wonder that Yoon's approval ratings have been at rock bottom
13:05throughout his presidency. To give you an idea, Yoon's approval rating peaked in June 2022,
13:10when he had only been in office for a month and a half, at 53%.
13:14Since then, things have gone from bad to worse. The scandals have not let up,
13:18and the vast majority of South Koreans today practically repudiate him.
13:22Wait a minute, do you think I'm exaggerating? Well, take a look.
13:25YOON'S APPROVAL RATING FALLS TO 19 POINTS, GALLOP POLL
13:28The latest opinion polls show that 71% of South Koreans disapprove of the president,
13:32and only 19% approve of him. These are absolutely unsustainable rates for any political leader.
13:39And of course, as we said, his wife's scandals are partly, but not entirely, to blame. The other
13:44reasons given by respondents for failing him are his economic management and also his foreign policy,
13:49especially towards North Korea. Now, what on earth is this government doing so wrong that
13:53the president is reaping such an intense level of hate? Well, there are several fronts that Yoon
13:58had open and that have contributed a lot to the terrible decision to try to stage a coup d'etat.
14:03To begin with, a very long and huge medical strike.
14:09For 10 months now, doctors in training have been on strike against the government's plan
14:13to increase the annual quota for admission to medical schools by 2,000 students over the next
14:1810 years. More than 12,000 doctors in training have walked off the job and medical teachers
14:23have also joined the strike. And you're probably thinking,
14:27what's the problem? What's wrong with increasing the quota of medical students so that there will
14:31be more doctors? Well, honestly, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. What the South Korean government
14:36wants is to prepare the country for what is coming. Don't forget that South Korea has an
14:40increasingly aging population and the lowest birth rate on the planet. To give you an idea,
14:45in 2023 South Korea had a birth rate of only 0.72 children per woman, which falls far short of the
14:52replacement rate of 2.1 children. In other words, the country is heading straight for a real
14:57demographic collapse that will drive up healthcare costs and lead to the need for many more doctors
15:02and other professionals for the elderly. On top of that, there are fewer and fewer doctors in
15:06rural areas because they charge less and being a rural doctor is not as lucrative as, for example,
15:12being a cosmetic surgeon. Yes, South Koreans are crazy about cosmetic surgery. And I mean crazy.
15:21The fact is that the doctors, instead of increasing the quotas, what they are asking
15:25for is to be paid more and to change the planning of the system. In short, the same old story.
15:30The problem? Well, this strike has created an unprecedented healthcare crisis. To give you an
15:35idea of what we're talking about, not long ago a university student suffered a cardiac arrest
15:40and a hospital that was only 100 meters away refused to transfer her to the center. And this
15:45is not an isolated case. There are many sick people who have been denied treatment even in
15:50their own emergency rooms. Why? Because the doctors were on strike. The curious thing is that,
15:55initially, the majority of South Koreans were in favor of the government's plan. But in the end,
15:59the consequences of the strike and the health crisis that have been unleashed have turned
16:03things completely upside down. In fact, precisely because of everything that I'm telling you,
16:07one of the points of the martial law decree that the president invoked said precisely this.
16:12All medical personnel, including interns, who are on strike or have left their medical posts,
16:17must return to their duties within 48 hours and serve diligently. Violators will be punished under
16:22the Martial Law Act. And this is not all. South Koreans also reproached the president for his
16:26mishandling of relations with North Korea and his drive to control the press.
16:34But do you want a concrete example? Well, you see, during a presidential flight, which usually
16:39includes accredited press, an open microphone belonging to the South Korean channel NBC
16:43caught the president saying this.
16:46And do you know what happened? Well, this president, who always has plenty to say about
16:54being a defender of freedom, boycotted the NBC network as a punishment. In this way,
16:59Yoon banned some NBC reporters at the presidential office from flying on the official plane again.
17:05Punishment for speaking out. And keep in mind, we aren't talking about an isolated event.
17:09Yoon's fixation with the press has caused South Korea to drop to 62nd in press freedom in 2024.
17:16While in 2022, the year Yoon took office, it ranked 43rd. 19 places lower in just two years.
17:23Even Kim Jong-un would be proud.
17:28VisualPolitik community, the stories we've told you about are just a few of the many
17:31scandals that have surrounded Yoon's presidency. Scandals that have generated
17:35a stifling political climate in South Korea. And yes, it's also true that the opposition
17:39is being extremely harsh, which has generated for some time now a brutal clash between the
17:44two branches of government. The executive, which Yoon controls, and the legislative,
17:48which, since he has been president, has always been in the hands of the opposition.
17:53Seeing himself cornered and trying to avoid at all costs the investigations against his wife,
17:57the best he could come up with was to try to stage a coup d'etat for, truth be told,
18:02it's not clear what ends. To call legislative elections again? It makes no sense,
18:06he would lose them by a huge margin. Remember that his approval was at rock bottom and that
18:10led his party to a dismal result in last April's legislative elections. Perhaps it's due to
18:15illegalizing parties with the excuse of being pro-North Korean. That doesn't seem feasible
18:20because, for that, he would need the endorsement of the judiciary. Unless,
18:23of course, he planned to completely suspend the constitutional framework.
18:27But if not, what exactly was he looking for with this move? Frankly, we don't understand.
18:32And almost nobody understands it. That is why many see it as an act of desperation,
18:36of rage and, in short, of madness and total loss of common sense.
18:41Whatever the case, what is clear is that Yoon Seok-yol has been totally delegitimized for being
18:46president. If he doesn't resign, the opposition has already announced that it will file an
18:53impeachment against him this week, an impeachment trial that will result in his imminent removal
18:58from office. And given that not even his own party supports him, it seems clear that this
19:03president no longer has a future. What Yoon decided to do not only put South Korean
19:11democracy in check, but also put the armed forces themselves on the ropes.
19:16The image of soldiers bursting into parliament was reminiscent of past military dictatorships,
19:20and the South Korean armed forces have been working for decades to shed the image of being
19:24part of an authoritarian model. From being the executing hand of such grave crimes as the 1980
19:30Gwangju Massacre, in which between 600 and 2,300 people were killed. Nevertheless, we now,
19:36once again, have images of soldiers surrounding the National Assembly.
19:40The level of irresponsibility demonstrated by the president makes it impossible for him to
19:44continue in office for much longer. Whether through his own resignation or by means of
19:47his dismissal, we can only anticipate his end. And while that's happening,
19:52the question is over to you. And this time I'm going to be very clear.
19:55Do you think that the political polarization in your country could lead to episodes as serious
20:00as the one just witnessed in South Korea? Well, leave your opinions in the comments
20:05and let's start a debate. Now, if you liked the video, don't forget to like it, subscribe to our
20:08channel and activate the little bell so you don't miss any news. It's free and helps us out a lot.
20:12As always, thank you very much for being there, all the best, and I'll see you next time.