moves to impeach the president of South Korea are well underway after he took took the country and the World by surprise when he briefly declared martial law Yun suol made the announcement in a late night unscheduled press conference I declare martial law to protect the free republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean Communist forces to eradicate the Despicable pro- North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order the military then responded by entering the National Assembly Building as lawmakers and protesters gathered
outside 190 MPS held an emergency vote to lift the Declaration and president Yun ordered the Army to withdraw he is now facing impeachment proceedings filed by opposition MPS now the leader of the opposition has warned that the president could try to declare martial law again they will try it again by addressing their shortcomings after they have failed once when that time comes we the citizens along with the Democratic party of Korea and our lawmakers will step forward and fight to ensure this Victory and John Lee is editor of Korea Pro and joins us now from
Soul John good to have you on the program now straight up what was President yunsuk Yol thinking when he declared martial law well that's a million dooll question we're not quite sure what he was thinking now we just uh you just played a clip of what the president had said uh just before he declared martial law he described North Korea forces and actually in Korean he also added the phrase anti-state forces now these are typical phrases that he have used for a long time but they usually refer to opposition lawmakers and the reasons that he
came up with was really parliamentary grit loock um the opposition parties have attempted to impeach several of his ministers and uh several prosecutors as well and they've also gone after his wife for uh alleged misconduct which she has vetoed numerous times and it's the end of the year which means that in Korea that's when the government and the opposition parties are always wrangling about the budget and this time around the opposition parties have decided to take on a a more robust approach in trying to Strongarm the presidents to see the budget proposal their way and
these are the reasons that the president gave to actually declare martial law which has led a lot of people to scratch their heads because these are really procedural things that actually happen in democracy quite a bit and for the president to have actually invoked martial law over this this has caused a lot of people to be very confused and of course I mean something like this you see soldiers on the streets in the very um early hours after he declared martial law what what this do these things conjure up do these things conjure up the
days of military dictatorship under uh chundu Juan and Pak chungi oh yes for a lot of people um the last time South Korea had a martial law actually invoked it was in 1979 to 1980 and that was when martial law actually meant something very serious it had a lasting and very tragic impact on South Korea people died when the when that happened people lost their freedoms and so because so many people actually still remember all of that and it's within people's uh living memory uh when the word martial law first came on TV people thought
this is a joke uh is the president being serious about it and when they saw troops and police officers in front of the National Assembly Building oh yes this caused a lot of people to have a very unpleasant flashbacks yes and of course he used martial law it's a very blunt instrument to try to deploy in in a situation for the president who is having his own political troubles um do we now see him uh being impeached you do you think that this is a foregone conclusion not just by the virtue of uh the opposition's
majority in the parliament but also members of his own party if the president does not get impeached the only reason why that would be is because he would be resigning before he can he can get impeached now we have to remember that the president uh before he was president he was a prosecutor and he had helped to uh lead the charge against former presidents and actually put those former presidents in prison and so he knows what the impeachment process is like he knows how ugly it can get and how very unpleasant it can be and
I doubt that he would want to actually put himself through that same process that he put others into and so there's a chance that that if he decides to be stubborn yes he will be impeached and there will be several obstacles along the way such as the the lack of a number of justices in the Constitutional court but it will be very ugly and drawn out but if he decides to resign it might be much quicker so those are really the only two options that are available to the president at the moment and what could
possibly happen to him after impeachment looks like it's an inevitable outcome there but what could proceed after well South Korea has a very long history of presidents not really enjoying the retirement after they leave office they either get exiled or they get assassinated or they get imprisoned and so for president Yun things are not looking that great for him after he after he leaves office yes they don't look good for him but we're seeing cycle after cycle of presidents you know in the case of Pak Yun in the case of liun Bak they get uh
get convicted they get sent to prison but then you know a president who is in power then pardons them is this something that perhaps he's expecting as well it's not impossible it's always within the realm of possibility but that being said neither of those two former presidents that you just mentioned had tried to invoke martial law now there were rumors that when President Pak was being impeached that some of some of the her advisers around her were actually considering martial law but it was only within the consideration phase it never actually was put into practice
president Yun did and so for any future South Korean president to Pardon Yun it will require a bit more political Capital than it had taken him and his predecessors to pardon the their predecessors we now seeing pictures of protesters uh you having scuffles with soldiers on the streets um does this also throw into question military leadership uh something that is being considered right now because the defense minister actually just resigned 30 minutes ago before we started this call the defense minister had apologized and he was saying that he was taking full responsibility and apparently now
this is not yet confirmed but some of the soldiers who were there were saying that they were told initially that they were part of a of a special military operation that was involving North Korean targets but they found themselves very surprised when they were actually taken to the National Assembly now this is he say at the moment is not yet confirmed but there has been a lot of contradictory reports coming from the officers from the Ministries and from the soldiers as well okay and John it's also barely been 20 hours since this entire thing unfolded
and we are seeing now live pictures from South Korea vigils people in candle lights uh uh holding some sort of a silent protest uh what's the atmosphere in Soul like and and also I wanted you to bring you back to what you felt when you first heard this happening in the late hours of uh uh Soul well to answer the first question how I felt I felt angry when I saw images of soldiers smashing Windows to actually try to storm the National Assembly uh uh like in America when we had January 6 but this I
felt much more viscerally because it was actually the soldiers who were being told to do this and I felt infuriated and I believe that a lot of South Koreans have shared my uh my my feelings about this uh right now it's all there are tens of thousands of people who are carrying candle lights and the these candle light protests goes back years is a long is a long PE um peaceful way of protest that South Koreans have perfected over the years and this has been the preferred mode of uh protest anytime that they've been very
upset with the political leadership and we have seen this uh just uh come back with a vengeance just starting today and it will really not go away until in one way or another the president yunong yal is no longer an office yes and of course uh I want to ask as well politically what's happening um uh with the political establishment here how do South Koreans see the political establishment whether it's the people power party or the president or the opposition that is in majority in the parliament will this rock the confidence of South Koreans um
as far as the political leaders are concerned nor the president nor EJ y who's the opposition leader really enjoy the uh very high ratings their ratings have always been low of course the presidents have been much lower in fact they've been quite dismal uh but because they've been so uh the the public has had such little faith in the political leaders that for a lot of people while they were shocked at what happened last night they're not entirely all that disappointed because they didn't really have High Hopes with them at all to begin with anyway
okay John le really good to get your thoughts on what's happening in South Korea is something that we will be keeping um a look at for the next few days and the repercussions are certainly being felt across the world John thank you so much once again thank you for
