[Editorial] Was Yoon able to go to warfare for martial regulation?

Earlier this week, a particular counsel indicted Korea’s deposed former president, Yoon Suk-yeol, and two different key figures in final 12 months’s martial regulation disaster on expenses of “benefitting the enemy,” which constitutes treason underneath South Korea’s felony code. 

The treason expenses towards Yoon, his former protection chief, Kim Yong-hyun, and his counterintelligence commander, Yeo In-hyeong, got here after the particular counsel detained and indicted all three on expenses of plotting and finishing up an revolt throughout final 12 months’s short-lived martial regulation disaster. 

The particular counsel’s conclusion is that whereas Yoon was president, he and his cohorts tried to intensify navy tensions with North Korea by way of acts resembling sending drones into Pyongyang with a purpose to create a pretext for declaring martial regulation.

Whereas the matter nonetheless awaits a court docket’s choice, the findings of the particular counsel’s investigation are surprising in and of themselves.

If Pyongyang had responded to the drone provocations, the inevitable consequence would have been native warfare with an unlimited human price. It’s merely horrifying to assume that state affairs have been entrusted to somebody shameless sufficient to ignore the general public’s very lives for the sake of his personal political ambitions.

The content material of notes acquired by the particular counsel from the cell phone of Yeo — who was commander of the Protection Counterintelligence Command underneath Yoon — particulars a state of affairs that might simply have plunged the Korean Peninsula right into a state of warfare.

A number of the most surprising notes have been those dated Oct. 18 and 23 and Nov. 15 of final 12 months. These made reference to “goal [locations] that harm [North Korea’s] sense of pleasure so [it is] pressured to reply,” with targets listed as Pyongyang, two nuclear amenities, Samjiyon and different idolization bases, and Kim Jong-un’s trip areas. They additional discuss with a “closing state of ongoing low-intensity drone warfare” and “discovering and exploiting a once-in-a-lifetime alternative to attain fast ends in an unstable scenario.”

The targets talked about within the notes bear similarities to the precise actions of drones that infiltrated North Korea on Yoon’s orders between October and November of final 12 months. The notes additionally account for why the drones in query flew in such a manner that may be simply observable by North Korean troops. The notes even included plans for proposing navy talks if Pyongyang discovered its pleasure sufficiently broken to undertake a navy response.

The notes additionally align with beforehand disclosed entries from the notebooks of former Protection Intelligence Command chief Roh Sang-won. These supplies additionally made reference to scary navy motion by North Korea, together with “encouraging a North Korean assault alongside the Northern Restrict Line.”

It additionally seems seemingly that a number of the extra hair-raising content material was no mere delusion. This included references to “amassing” round 500 folks — amongst them “30 to 50 in Yeouido,” “100 to 200 from the press,” and “judges within the authorities’s pocket” — in addition to utilizing “explosives in barracks sleeping quarters,” “chemical brokers in meals and water provides,” and loading folks onto a ship to be “detonated in an appropriate location.”

Yoon claimed that he resolved to declare martial regulation due to the “uncooperativeness” of the Democratic Celebration and different political opposition. The extra treason expenses present that this too was merely an excuse.

The particular counsel’s investigation has demonstrated that Yoon and his cohorts had been making regular preparations for martial regulation in ways in which had nothing to do with the opposition’s cooperation on issues of state affairs. He endangered the general public’s lives and nationwide safety for the sake of his personal safety.

It now falls on the judiciary to ship a stern ruling towards this betrayal of the general public.

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