South Korea’s Lee says on martial law anniversary perpetrators must face justice

SEOUL - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Dec 3 there was still work left to deal with the fallout of the

failed martial law bid one year ago

and ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.

The attempt to impose martial law by former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol threatened to deal an irreparable setback to the country, but the people rose up and stopped the military with their bare hands, Mr Lee said in an address marking the first anniversary of the shock announcement by his predecessor.

“The recklessness of those who tried to destroy the constitutional order and even plan a war all for their personal ambition must be brought to justice,” he said.

“The Dec 3 coup d’etat was not just a crisis for democracy in one country. If democracy in South Korea collapsed, it would have meant a setback... for world democracy.”

Yoon’s martial law declaration plunged a country that had been celebrated as one of the success stories of democratic resilience into months of political turmoil, just as US President Donald Trump’s moves to slap tariffs on global trading partners rattled South Korea, an export-heavy economy.

The conservative leader was later ousted and Mr Lee, a political rival who lost to Yoon in 2022, won a snap election in June with a mandate to steer the country out of the shock of martial law, as those who were accused of being involved were arrested and tried for subversion.

Since coming to office, Mr Lee has managed to strike a US tariff deal after two summits with Mr Trump, but there remain deep fissures in society and concerns over whether the conservative side feels it is being persecuted.

Mr Lee said the work of reforming the country following the martial law crisis was bound to be painful and time-consuming.

“But just as treating cancer by removing the cancer cells that have taken root deep inside the body, it cannot be completed that easily,” he said.

Nobel Peace Prize?

Yoon justified his short-lived martial law by accusing “anti-state forces”, including Mr Lee’s Democratic Party, of paralysing government and ruining democracy.

He said he had no choice but to impose martial law to restore order in a surprise late-night announcement on Dec 3, 2024.

That declaration was reversed within hours by a majority vote in Parliament by Mr Lee’s Democrats and some members of Yoon’s conservative party.

On trial for insurrection and facing life imprisonment or even potentially the death penalty, Yoon has denied ordering the arrest of opposition lawmakers and political enemies and argued the martial law declaration did not harm the country.

A number of former Cabinet members, senior military officers and lawmakers are also on trial or under criminal probe.

Yoon’s wife, Kim Keon Hee, faces a separate trial on charges of corruption and bribery.

Mr Lee said he will propose designating Dec 3 as a national holiday to celebrate the role of the people in quelling the martial law bid and added that he believed they deserved to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr Lee plans to take part in a citizens’ march later on Dec 3 to mark how the country defied the attempt to bring in military rule.

The march will pass Parliament, where soldiers and police were deployed on the night of Dec 3, 2024, to try to block lawmakers, who jumped fences to avoid the security cordons and entered the chamber to vote down the martial law declaration.

Supporters of Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP) plan a separate rally to demand that its leaders hold firm and not apologise for the martial law debacle, which has left party members split.

The PPP’s floor leader apologised on Dec 3 for failing to prevent martial law.

Mr Song Eon-seog said lawmakers should “feel a heavy sense of responsibility for failing to prevent the declaration of martial law that caused such distress to the public”.

But party leader Jang Dong-hyuk wrote on social media that the martial law had served to “counter an act of parliamentary tyranny”. REUTERS, AFP