Above photo: KCTU/X.
Calls for Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to resign have grown throughout the country.
Following the President’s attempt to impose martial law.
Trade unions, political parties, and civil society organizations in South Korea have called for the resignation of President Yoon Suk Yeol following his attempt to impose martial law. Opposition parties, including the Democratic Party and the Rebuilding Korea Party, have sponsored a motion in the parliament to impeach Yoon. Thousands participated in a candlelight vigil on Wednesday to demand the same.
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the largest trade union confederation in the country, announced that they will stage a general strike until President Yoon steps down. The union stated that the general strike “will mark the beginning of ending inequality and polarization, paving the way for a new era of labor respect. Through this resignation strike, let us move toward a new society where labor rights and public welfare are guaranteed.”
After Yoon declared martial law on Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday morning, South Koreans demonstrated outside of the National Assembly, physically blocking the arrival of troops and ensuring that members of the Assembly could enter to deliver a unanimous vote against Yoon’s decree. Videos of these ordinary South Koreans, physically defying soldiers by grabbing their guns or shoving them away from the assembly, have circulated social media across the globe.
The sudden declaration of martial law recalls South Korea’s past struggles against military rule. Martial law had not been declared in the country since 1987, under the Fifth Republic of Korea, during which several popular struggles for democracy took place, including the Gwangju Uprising and the June Democratic Struggle. Much like the right-wing President Yoon, former South Korean military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, who was in power from 1980 to 1988, utilized rumors and accusations of communism to justify crackdowns on democracy, closing schools, censoring press, and banning political activity. On May 18, 1980, students in the city of Gwangju rose up in protest, and were massacred by the thousands by Chun Doo-hwan’s forces.