Letter from Seoul - 16
South Korea's Yoon declares emergency martial law
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
What fresh hell is this?
Late Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol, a novice politician in his second-year as the country’s elected leader, and called an emergency meeting of the National Assembly. He announced he was imposing martial law.
Yoon announced that the Republic of Korea was plagued by too many people who sympathized with those filthy communists in North Korea.
We can see the National Assembly building from our bedroom window on the seventh floor here. The seat of government is actually located on a big damn island in the Han River, known as Yeouido. A bridge that spans the river and leads directly to the National Assembly is right outside this apartment complex.
I think the politicians went into an emergency session last night (it is now 5:45 a.m. Wednesday here) and voted unanimously to over-rule Yoon. This happened Tuesday evening.
The Koreans are very fickle about their presidents. They have impeached two of them, and sent them to prison in the recent past. Yoon miscalculated, and may join this Hall of Shame as a result. His political career is fucked.
Yoon is on shaky ground these days because the real estate market is stagnant, and this is putting a lot of pressure on the economy.
However, the war in Ukraine is testing politics on the peninsula. North Korea now has troops on the battlefield alongside the Russians. At the same time, South Korea is sending arms and money to support Ukraine. The fact is now Koreans are killing Koreans in Ukraine. This unresolved civil war here has taken on a new dimension.
This puts China in an awkward position. The Chinese have a lot of money invested in South Korea, and – of the foreigners who own property in South Korea ... primarily Seoul, but also on JeJu Island, a popular resort area, dubbed Korea’s Hawaii, off the southern coast ... they own about 56% percent of foreign real estate, with the Americans in the #2 spot.
North Korea is a worthless gangster state, yet has a land border with China. The western part of South Korea is essentially the ocean – known here as the Yellow Sea. China does not want North Korea to collapse, only because they don’t want the crisis of millions of North Korean refugees pouring across their common border.
It used to be that Chinese tourists would start to invade Seoul by Wednesday afternoon and then return to either Beijing or Shanghai by Sunday evening. Not anymore. We were downtown Monday at Namdaemun and around Myeongdong, the heart of the tourist area here, and every other person along Namdaemun-ro (Namdaemun Street) were Chinese ... with big-ass Chinese tourist buses waiting to take them here and there.
The city actually has set-up a drop off point for the Chinese to check-in their luggage for return flights, and a shuttle service will take the luggage to the respective airports. Inchon is the big international airport, but the smaller original air[ort still handles some international flights to China. This new policy is to entice the Chinese to linger longer at the retail stores in the downtown area and keep flashing their credit cards ... while their luggage is already checked-in for the appropriate airport.
So now the Chinese are here almost every damn day. The upside is that China is tied to South Korea and has too much at stake to see this place fucked over by Kim Jong-un and Putin.
Once the day breaks, I’ll walk across the bridge to the National Assembly to check it out.
Most people were at home, answering the Call of Sleep when President Yoon went on TV to launch an unexpected late-night national address declaring martial law.
Yoon citied “threats posed by North Korea's communist forces” and a need to “eliminate anti-state elements.”
Here’s a quick timeline:
10:23 pm - President Yoon announces emergency martial law;
11pm - Martial law kicks in;
11pm-midnight - Lawmakers scramble to the legislature, jumping over perimeters and wrestling through police barricades;
Midnight-3 am - Anti-president protestors rally outside;
12:48 am - Enough lawmakers make it inside to meet the minimum150 threshold, while fending off military attempts to break in and block any vote;
1:0 4 am - Legislature unanimously 190 -0 to declare the martial law invalid. The vote: 190 - 0
4:26 am - President Yoon accepts the rebuke and withdraws his decree.
It is now after 6 p.m. on Wednesday in the Orient. Earlier today I walked to the National Assembly from our apartment complex, a good 30-minutes away.
Considering this is the start of the winter season, it was a bright cheery day – just perfect for some political fuckery.
The Koreans at these gatherings always treat me well. In fact, women offer me water – and the men want to be photographed with me. But there is the language barrier. Most everyone present were older folks, retired, with a lot of free time to voice their political concerns. Everyone displayed the same sort of signs ... so, they either favored the President who just fucked up badly, or they want him to get out, and get out now.
Sookyung assures me the people I documented today are against the current President, and want him out of office at once.
Allegedly, what President Yoon did late Tuesday night – last night here, was not spontaneous – at all. The late-night news was already reporting this by 11 p.m. – yesterday.
If President Yoon does not do the honorable thing and “off” himself, he is expected to resign. If he does not resign, he will be impeached. If he fucks around, and doesn’t move with haste, he will go to prison. It’s the nature of the Squid Game here.
Sookyung and some of her friends have stockpiled U.S. dollars for a variety of reasons. With the clock running down quickly before Trump rolls back into the White House with his Sewer Clown Posse, Sookyung and her friend anticipate that the U.S. dollar will get shaky because of Trump’s lunacy. They are heading to the bigger Korean banks, and cashing in the dollars before they drop in value. And now, the President Yoon debacle.
Yoon’s self-coup was the work of a desperate idiot, with a 19% approval rating - and his conservative political party’s minority in the legislature.
Yoon’s announcement led to helmeted troops storming into the National Assembly building and military helicopters were seen landing on the roof. Thousands of protesters gathered outside the National Assembly.
The martial law remained in place for only six hours as the opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly voted to overrule the president.
Later Yoon could be heard singing in English:
“I fought the law,
And the law won.’
Some embellishment for a little levity.
There was no sudden threat from Kim Jong-Un in Pyongyang.
Seoul’s opposition-led legislature has been on fire lately, pushing legislation that’s Moved to impeach top prosecutors Rejected a government budget proposal, and Three times voted to investigate first lady Kim Keon-hee.
President Yoon’s job is now in jeopardy as the opposition wants him to be impeached for treason.
Protesters both last night and this morning were outside the National Assembly chanting “Impeach President Yoon,” and there’s a solid chance those calls will echo in Seoul’s historic Gwanghwamun Square for weeks to come.And now Americans wait with absolute dread as Our Convicted Felon-in-Chief and his Sewer Clown Posse get ready to implement Project 2025 after the department store rapist is sworn into office as President, again.
How soon before Trump declares martial law in America?
[Old Delhi, Varanasi and Kolkata]