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Today in South Korea, police and investigators attempted to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, but they were blocked by his security detail. It's the latest in a story that began after President Yoon briefly declared martial law one month ago. Some observers of global democracy note the timing. Next week, it'll be four years since supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol to overturn the election. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports on the lessons that people inside and outside South Korea are drawing from these incidents.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS #1: (Chanting in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS #2: (Chanting in non-English language).
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Within hours of President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaring martial law on December 3, the world watched as protesters convened on the Parliament. Lawmakers scaled walls and tussled with soldiers. They made it inside the building and voted to overturn the decree. Some experts describe what Yoon did as an attempted self-coup. That is an attempt by a sitting leader to keep or extend his power by sweeping away checks and balances such as parliaments or election results. Aurel Croissant is a political scientist at Heidelberg University in Germany.
AUREL CROISSANT: The South Korean declaration of martial law is a textbook example of such a self-coup.
KUHN: For many South Koreans, their experience naturally raises comparisons with January 6, 2021, in the U.S. One difference between the two is that the U.S. did not declare martial law. Instead, it was aimed at overturning election results. Yoon, meanwhile, tried to break the resistance of an opposition-controlled Parliament.
CROISSANT: The essential feature of the action is similar - the attempt to prevent another branch of government from performing its constitutional duties and holding the government accountable.
KUHN: After Yoon's attempt failed, the White House praised South Korea's democratic institutions for holding firm. But Croissant argues that if they had held, Yoon would not have been able to declare martial law even for a few hours.
CROISSANT: South Korean's democracy is strong in reacting to crisis, but it's very weak in preventing crisis. One factor is, of course, that the institutional safeguards, the guardrails, didn't work.
KUHN: Seoul National University political scientist Kang Won-Taek says that part of the problem lies in the way South Korea's political system was designed and built.
KANG WON-TAEK: (Through interpreter) The core of Korea's democratization so far has been focused on holding fair and democratic elections for president.
KUHN: Kang argues that the system has reached its limits and some of the President's powers now need to be redistributed. A debate on this issue has been going on for some years. Another reason Yoon's self-coup failed is that the military balked at using force to impose martial law. One factor in that, Kang says, is the events of May 1980.
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UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Chanting in non-English language).
KUHN: South Korea's then-ruling military junta sent troops to crush prodemocracy protests in Gwangju City, killing around 200 civilians.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
KANG: (Through interpreter) It was all because of the incident in Gwangju that claimed so many victims. The soldiers felt extremely ashamed after witnessing the incident in Gwangju.
KUHN: South Korean author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in literature last year for books including human acts that dealt with the trauma of Gwangju. In Parliament last month, opposition floor leader Park Chan-dae mentioned two of the questions Han raises about Gwangju - can the past help the present, and can the dead save the living?
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PARK CHAN-DAE: (Non-English language spoken).
KUHN: "As I experienced the civil strife of the December 3 martial law decree," he said, "I would like to answer yes to the question, can the past help the present? - because May 1980 saved December 2024." Aurel Croissant notes that South Korea and the U.S. are both representative democracies, where people select representatives to govern for them. When the representatives fail, citizens must mobilize to protect their rights themselves. Croissant quotes...
CROISSANT: What Daron Acemoglu, the Nobel Prize winner in economics said four years ago, civil society is the last line of defense for democracy. And he's right.
KUHN: South Koreans have been mobilizing for over 100 years, Croissant adds, learning lessons from 35 years of Japanese colonial occupation and more than 25 years of military dictatorships. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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