Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Yoon Seok-yeol's emerging police state
There was a great thread on TK's AAK twitter feed September 20, about the marshal law plan devised by the Defense Security Command in South Korea during the 2017 Candlelight Demonstations to keep Park Geun-hye in power. It is now being turned around by President Yoon Seok-yeol, the guy who addressed the UN General Assembly yesterday going on and on about freedom and progress. It's a Kafkaesque turn of affairs that only Yoon and his good squad in prosecution offices could come up with. The good guys are painted as the bad guys, and the coup planner becomes the good guy and doesn't have to hide any more.
This is what TK wrote on twitter:
T.K. of AAK! (@AskAKorean)
I cannot express how alarming this is, and how much democratic backsliding this represents. The fact that there has been zero reference to this coup plot by Park Geun-hye's military among the DC blob was the moment when I realized - these people truly know nothing. Quote Tweet
The Blue Roof
@BluRoofPolitics
·
14h
The ruling People Power Party filed a criminal complaint against Moon Jae-in admin Defense Minister for publicizing a 67-document from Defense Security Command that detailed a plot for military coup during the 2016-17 Candlelight Protests.
https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/1572206418467471360
Well they either know nothing or pretend to know nothing.
The martial law plan was first reported in July 2018. The commander from the Defense Security Command believed responsible had allegedly fled to the US and never came back to South Korea. No coup attempt by the military ever took place, subsequently, I heard news reports on independent media of right wing criticism of the former Prime Minister and acting president at that time, Hwang Kyo-ahn, for letting the Constitutional Court make its decision and complete the impeachment trial and conviction of Park Geun-hye.
There was a news report from YTN five days ago,* that the former DSC commander, Cho Hyun-jun, is now after hiding for five years, negotiating with the Yoon government " to come back to South Korea voluntarily to cooperate with an investigation by prosecutors." In other words Yoon has turned this plot to overthrow the government during the Park impeachment proceedings into a prosecution of Moon's former defense minister, who later publicly disclosed the details of the martial law plan to the public. He had nothing to do with it as part of a later administration. So now the principal suspect in the martial law plan, to put down massive but peaceful civilian demonstrations and basically conduct a coup d'etat, is willing to come back to participate in the fix by Yoon's cronies running the prosecutor's offices and police in South Korea.
*Source- 자진 귀국' 예고한 조현천...檢 '계엄 문건' 투트랙 수사? / YTN (youtube) 9.15.22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFCa-tErO2w
The case against the former Defense Minister Song Yeong-moo is being referred to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Branch, the same office investigating the bs charges against the former National Intelligence Service Director concerning the defector shooting by North Korea in the West Sea. Is there a former cabinet member from the Moon administration who isn't being investigated or prosecuted by the Yoon administration on fabricated charges?
Did the US media ever covered this martial law plan? This blog posted a brief report about it when the documents first came out in July 2018.
Park Administration Martial Law Plan Under Investigation, 6.20.18
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2018/07/park-administration.
Final note:The September 19, Asia Times Article, "Korea’s Yoon in a deep, dark ratings hole," is really just another whitewash of Yoon's malevolent police state in the making. Yoon and other prosecutors under the influence of his wife or his wife's mother, have protected them from the criminal justice system for many years. This is the modus operandi and driving gestalt of the Yoon administration. Yoon has been sanctioned twice for unethical professional conduct by formal ethics committees. The last time just before his presidential campaign for politicizing prosecutors' offices, intervening in a case in which he had a personal conflict of interest, and unlawfully investigating judges.
Now Yoon is conducting a policy of rule by decree and investigation and prosecution of opposition political rivals and critics. Multiple former cabinet ministers and other high level officials are under investigation or being prosecuted by Yoon's cadre of prosecutors loyal to him. Even the wives and other family members of prominent democratic party leadership are being pursued as part of Yoon's "revenge politics" of political persecution. He has consolidated control of the all the institutions in the administration of justice in South Korea including the National Police Agency, the Justice Ministry, and the Public Prosecutors offices nationally. Judges and political officials function in the shadow of Yoon's intimidation. There are no checks and balances in South Korean government as Yoon and his cabal of prosecutors have effectively constructed a police state nullifying recent legal reforms passed into law by an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly. Yoon's speech at the UN was the most cynical hypocrisy one could imagine particularly in his references to freedom and progress. The bothsiderism in the Asia Times article is a white wash of Yoon's loathesome McCathyite red baiting, Friedmarnite "every man for himself" austerity, and fascist application of police power.
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