South Korea: Celebrations Break Out After Yoon’s Removal

In a unanimous decision on Friday, April 4, the Constitutional Court in Seoul upheld the impeachment of Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, ordering his immediate removal from his post.

Millions of people took to the streets across the country to celebrate the court’s decision calling it the end of the coup attempt. People carried posters and banners denouncing Yoon’s authoritarianism and chanting pro-democracy and pro-peace slogans.

All eight judges in the constitutional court agreed with its acting Chief Justice Moon Hyung-bae who said that by declaring martial law Yoon “abandoned his responsibility to safeguard the constitution and gravely betrayed the trust of the sovereign people of Republic of Korea,” The Korean Times reported.

Yoon had declared martial law on December 3 following parliament’s refusal to approve his government’s budget proposals. In a television address he had claimed that martial law would allow him to eradicate “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces” in the country. He had even alleged that these forces were “trying to paralyze the essential functions of the state and disrupt the constitutional order of our liberal democracy.”

However, Yoon was forced to withdraw the martial law hours after its declaration as South Koreans took to the street in millions to oppose the move calling it an attempted “military coup d’etat”. The parliament convened under massive popular pressure voted unanimously against the measure.

He was impeached on December 14 and all his powers revoked by the parliament and Haan Duck-soo was appointed as acting president. Yoon was arrested in January for violations of martial law provisions.

Yoon is the second president after Park Geun-hye in the last decade of South Korean history to be removed after impeachment. Park Geun-hye was removed from her post in March 2017 after a similar court ruling.

According to the constitution of South Korea, a new presidential election must be held within 60 days of the court’s ruling.

Yoon’s crackdown on rights and drive to war

A leader of the People’s Power Party (PPP), Yoon was elected as president in 2022. Immediately after being elected, Yoon subverted the possibilities for peace with its neighboring North Korea, with warmongering rhetoric and maneuvers. His administration pursued an aggressive policy of military build up which included consolidation of regional alliances with Japan and the US.

During his brief tenure, South Korea witnessed an unprecedented spike in joint military exercises with the US and its other regional allies prompting North Korea to term them provocative war preparations.

Analysts have claimed that his administration was preparing for a “limited war” with North Korea and the declaration of martial law was part of the same plot.

South Korea’s main opposition party Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and others welcomed the court’s verdict.

Anti-imperialist Korean diaspora organization Nodutdol celebrated the court’s decision in a statement on X. It called the removal of Yoon a victory for people “who have struggled without rest for four months under the threat of military rule.”

Nodutdol, however, claimed that the removal of Yoon alone is not enough for peace in the region as it does not mean any real change in the society. It called for a “total social transformation” of Korea which “must strike at the roots of oppression: the capitalist system and the US military occupation that defends it.”

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) also welcomed the removal of Yoon Suk-Yeol claiming after 123 days “Yoon Suk-Yeol’s coup d’etat has come to an end. It feels like we have come out of the long, long tunnel.” It also, however, warned that the fight for democracy in Korea is not over until the defeat of capitalism.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch