After Failed Coup, South Korea's President Could Be Impeached Tomorrow

Thousands are pouring into Seoul’s streets demanding Yoon’s impeachment in advance of the scheduled National Assembly vote around Yoon’s impeachment tomorrow.

There was, predictably, no apparent ​“threat” from North Korea as Yoon claimed — also echoed by other members of his People Power Party—but his actions are fundamentally rooted in the long legacy of U.S.-backed South Korean authoritarians weaponizing accusations of communist and ​“North Korean” influence under the guise of national security. The goal is to circumvent democratic processes and secure authoritarian power.

Yoon took power in 2022 after winning by margin of 0.8%, and his exploitation of the growing anti-feminist trend in South Korean society certainly played a role in the victory. During the campaign, Yoon and other People Power Party officials exploited anti-communist rhetoric as a way to gain popular support against the opposition party, and took to social media with incendiary rhetoric like the call to ​“crush commies” and ​“annihilate communism” (part of a viral trend using the phrase that dates back to the Korean War).

Since taking office, Yoon has become deeply unpopular with an approval rating of 17% last month. 

A mass formation of South Korean doctors and 1,500 religious leaders have also called for his resignation. Yoon has attacked women’s rights, targeted peace activists and escalated militarized tensions on the peninsula by institutionalizing trilateral military cooperation and exercises with the United States and Japan. 

South Koreans have recently ramped up calls for Yoon’s impeachment, with some 100,000 South Koreans taking the streets in protest. Yoon himself has cited the 22 impeachment motions against his administration and 10 impeachment efforts since June.

Yoon’s illegal attempt to impose martial law is a response to the growing dissent and calls for his impeachment. While the South Korean president’s authoritarianism and hubris are exceptionally pronounced, this type of government crackdown is endemic to the political landscape in Korea, which has for too long been defined by the ongoing Korean War, rampant U.S.-ROK militarism and the continued division of the peninsula.

This constant state of insecurity — a ​“permanent emergency state” — has historically enabled mass anti-communist paranoia and sweeping authoritarian violence and crackdowns, with up to 200,000 people killed at the hands of South Korean or U.S. forces before what is commonly referred to as the official outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. 

This trend has continued through the heavy-handed application of the notorious ​“National Security Law,” which has origins in Japan’s colonial period and has led to the dismantling of civil rights and liberties, executions of innocent South Koreans and the banning of international peace activists from entering South Korea.

The United States is no stranger to this phenomenon given the long legacy of McCarthyist witch hunts, which have incidentally targeted and deported Korean Americans based in the United States in the 1950s.

For example, in 1948, South Koreans on Jeju Island rose up in widespread opposition to a U.S.-supported election that would have led to the creation of a separate Korean government in the southern half of the peninsula, dividing it from the north. South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, backed by U.S. forces, labeled the civilians protesting on Jeju Island as ​“communist insurgents” and signed off on a ​“scorched-earth” crackdown, leading to the deaths of 30,000 innocent civilians.

U.S. military authorities, despite knowing the scale of violence befalling Jeju citizens, viewed the suppression of dissent as paramount.

From 1961 through his assassination in 1979, Park Chung-hee, favored by the United States for his staunchly anti-communist politics, also declared martial law multiple times.

In 1980, another U.S.-backed South Korean dictator, Chun Doo-hwan, weaponized accusations of communist influence and imposed martial law, cracking down on civilians, closing schools and censoring the press. Chun’s military massacred hundreds of innocent civilians. At that time, the United States refused to condemn Chun’s government and even approved of Chun’s use of force.

Given its complicity throughout Korea’s dark history of authoritarian crackdowns, the U.S. government has a heavy debt to pay and critical responsibility to ensure the preservation of democracy in South Korea.

Several U.S. representatives including Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) have condemned and expressed concern around Yoon’s actions. President Joe Biden and Yoon have both previously described their alliance as ​“Ironclad,”— though The White House this week expressed ​“deep concern” about Yoon’s actions and canceling of a high-level meeting.

In the 71 years since the Korean War Armistice Agreement, which temporarily ceased fighting but did not end the war, the United States has refused to sign an official peace agreement to end the continous normal of war. Instead, the U.S. military continues to exercise wartime operational control of designated South Korean military units, stations 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea and holds provocative U.S.-ROK war drills.

The stakes could not be higher. In the opening hours of an increasingly possible military conflict between the two Koreas, conservative estimates are that tens of thousands of people would die.

Yoon’s authoritarian actions and sweeping anti-communist accusations show that he is neither interested in upholding democracy nor protecting peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. 

Before Yoon further exploits military tensions — perceived or fabricated — Biden and other U.S. leaders must condemn the South Korean president. 

We can see all too clearly the cycles of U.S.-backed authoritarians in South Korea enacting mass violence against civilians and instigating geopolitical instability with grave consequences. We cannot repeat history.