SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung vowed to bring to justice those behind last year’s failed attempt to impose martial law as he marked the crisis’s first anniversary in a nationally televised address. He cast the showdown as the latest chapter in South Korea’s long struggle over its martial law and democratic rule, arguing that only full accountability can heal the country’s deep political wounds, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025.
Lee, who won a snap presidential election in June after the impeachment and removal of conservative predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, said the “cleanup” after the 2024 emergency decree was still unfinished and warned that entrenched interests would resist reforms, according to a Reuters report from Seoul. He likened the process to “removing cancer cells” from the state, pledged to press ahead with prosecutions of officials accused of helping plan the attempted self-coup, and proposed making Dec. 3 a national holiday honouring citizens who rallied to defend parliament — even suggesting they deserve consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Lee’s justice drive after the South Korean martial law crisis
The current push for accountability stems from the 2024 South Korea martial law crisis, when Yoon stunned the country with a late-night television address announcing an emergency decree that sought to sharply curb political activity and tighten media controls. The move, framed as a response to supposed “anti-state forces” and disputed election claims, was the first declaration of martial law since the authoritarian era of the early 1980s and immediately drew alarm from allies and scholars, including an analysis by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Within hours, crowds gathered outside the National Assembly, and lawmakers from across the aisle climbed over walls and pushed past security cordons to convene an emergency session that unanimously voted to void the decree, forcing Yoon to retreat, as detailed in contemporaneous Reuters coverage.
One year later, Yoon sits in detention facing insurrection and other serious charges. He insists the brief imposition of martial law was a necessary “warning” to protect the nation and says he complied with parliament’s demand to lift it, even as prosecutors argue the decree was part of a broader attempt to dissolve the legislature and govern by decree. Supporters, some of whom rallied in downtown Seoul during this week’s commemorations, accuse Lee’s government of waging a political vendetta, while moderates in the conservative People Power Party have apologised for failing to block the order.
At the National Assembly, more than 200 citizens retraced the dramatic events of that night in a so-called “dark tour” that walked past landing zones for troop helicopters and the wall lawmakers scaled to reach the chamber. The tour, led by Speaker Woo Won-shik and joined by protesters who had camped outside parliament, was meant both as civic education and a warning, according to a Reuters dispatch from the scene. Current Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back issued a formal apology for troops entering the legislature, calling it a “grave error” and promising that the military would never again be used to intimidate elected representatives.
Gwangju’s shadow and the long history of South Korea’s martial law
South Korea’s trauma over emergency rule long predates Yoon. In May 1980, General Chun Doo-hwan took control in the May 17 coup and extended martial law nationwide. Universities were closed, and dissent was suppressed. These actions helped trigger the Gwangju Uprising, when troops killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in the southwestern city. The massacre, now remembered as the Gwangju Democratization Movement, is seen as a turning point that ultimately led to South Korea’s transition to civilian rule in 1987.
Decades later, journalists and researchers continue to revisit those events. A 2014 feature in The Japan Times traced how the 1980 uprising helped transform the country’s political culture, while a 2020 South China Morning Post report described how survivors still carry raw memories of soldiers firing on crowds. A 2017 analysis by 38 North, drawing on newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents, underscored how the dictatorship sought to justify extending South Korea’s martial law by portraying Gwangju protesters as communist agitators — a narrative historians say has been thoroughly debunked.
Bitter divides over how to close the South Korea martial law chapter
Lee has vowed to steer between vengeance and impunity, saying “righteous unity” will be possible only once those who abused power are held to account. His administration supports ongoing trials of former cabinet ministers, senior officers, and security officials linked to the 2024 decree. The government is also promising reforms to tighten civilian control over the security services and clarify constitutional limits on martial law. Critics on the right warn that aggressive prosecutions may deepen ideological rifts already dividing families, churches, and online communities.
Supporters of Yoon, some of whom rallied under banners reading “Yoon, again!” during the anniversary, argue that he acted to prevent chaos and that Lee’s camp is weaponising the courts against them. Many liberals counter that failing to confront the 2024 South Korea martial law attempt as an anti-democratic rupture would invite future strongmen to test the limits of constitutional rule.
For now, the anniversary serves both as a warning and a test of Lee’s promise to rebuild trust in institutions shaken by back-to-back crises. How his administration handles the prosecutions — and whether South Koreans come to see them as fair reckoning or partisan score-settling — will help determine whether the country can finally close the book on its long, fraught history of martial law, or whether the episode becomes another fault line in an already polarised democracy.
