Last month, at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3, regular broadcasting on South Korea’s national TV stations suddenly ground to a halt, to be replaced by President Yoon Suk Yeol announcing that he was, as of that moment, imposing martial law. South Korea’s democratically elected parliament, the National Assembly, had become, he said, “a den of criminals”: Martial law would defend “the free Republic of Korea” against “pro-North Korean anti-state forces.”
In the minds of many South Koreans, the drama of that night, witnessed live worldwide as well as at home, was a reenactment of previous military coups that had led to decades of military dictatorship. New Lines spoke to activists credited with pushing for democratic reform in the 1980s and found that it was the trauma of those past struggles, as well as the resilience they learned then, that led them to risk everything again last December to defend Seoul’s democracy.
Lee Jae-eui, a 69-year-old senior researcher at the May 18 Memorial Foundation in Gwangju, started hiding his external hard drives immediately after he heard the president proclaim martial law. For Lee, the declaration evoked haunting memories of the preventive custody and bloodshed he witnessed in Gwangju 44 years ago.
“I murmured, ‘Please, let no one get hurt, no one get hurt.’ I learned how painful it is to see people being hurt from Gwangju,” Lee recalled in an interview.
As a student, Lee was part of the Gwangju Democratization Movement of May 1980, also known as May 18 or the Gwangju Uprising, which emerged in South Korea as citizens protested the dictatorship of Gen. Chun Doo-hwan. Chun had seized power through a military coup on Dec. 12, 1979, following the assassination of President Park Chung-hee, himself a military dictator in power since 1961. Chun’s attempt to consolidate control by extending martial law nationwide on May 17, 1980, sparked the Gwangju Uprising.
When the citizens of Gwangju protested, Chun mobilized the military to suppress them. The 10-day uprising, from May 18 to 27, is now known as the Democratization Movement, but it took many years for it to be accorded this recognition. The Chun Doo-hwan government labeled it a “riot by socially discontented forces” and a “communist rebellion.”
In 1980, Lee was a member of the Secret Management Team of Chonnam National University’s General Student Council, who joined the civilian militia that developed in response to the military crackdown. Every day, he saw the bodies of citizens who had been killed by troops.
“Those images were so strong. No matter how people labeled us as rioters, we couldn’t accept it. There were lots of attempts to frame movements as riots throughout history, but Gwangju people saw through the lie,” Lee said.
Nonetheless, citizens who resisted Chun’s coup were treated as criminals and forced to live in silence. The Gwangju Massacre, which resulted in around 200 deaths and 3,000 arrests and detentions, as well as the continued dictatorship, left trauma in countless people’s lives, leading many to be overwhelmed with shock when Yoon declared martial law in December for the first time in more than four decades.
Park Laegoon, a 63-year-old human rights activist and the head of operations at the 4.16 Foundation, commemorating the Sewol ferry sinking (the 2014 disaster that killed 304 people), also considered his options when he saw the news on Dec. 3. Under the martial law decree, all political activities, including those of the National Assembly, were prohibited. While the constitution requires the president to notify the National Assembly immediately after proclaiming martial law, he had instead sent troops to the assembly.
“I thought about what I needed to do,” Park said. “I could wait at home until I was arrested, or hide elsewhere. But I decided to go to the National Assembly, since it was obvious that I’d be arrested anyway.”
Park had attended Yonsei University in 1981, one year after the Gwangju Uprising, and joined student and labor movements throughout the 1980s. In 1988, he lost his younger brother to political protest, a pivotal incident that led him to become an activist against state violence and a defender of human rights.
When he arrived at the National Assembly around midnight on Dec. 3, he found that more than a thousand citizens had already gathered to defend it. Kong Sihyung, a 34-year-old former activist at South Korea’s Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media, was one of them. “When I realized it [the martial law declaration] was true, not a bad joke, I ran to the National Assembly thinking there would be no future for democracy after tonight,” Kong said.
Another citizen, Kim Eunkyul, a 25-year-old graduate student in psychology, instantly thought of Gwangju when the news broke and went immediately to the National Assembly, thinking they should at least try to block potential military action. “I went there thinking that, at best, I would be arrested and, at worst, I would be killed. My parents advised me to take cash, no cards that would identify me. I even let my friend know the door lock password of my studio, just in case.”
For hours on the night of Dec. 3-4, from the martial law declaration to its lifting six hours later, the National Assembly area was in chaos. Airborne troops landed from helicopters and soldiers entered the National Assembly. Aides inside the building resisted desperately, building barricades and spraying fire extinguishers, while some troops broke through windows.
Kim Deokhoon, a 26-year-old secretary to a Democratic Party lawmaker, feared the situation might worsen unless the National Assembly passed a resolution to lift martial law.
“Aides and citizens thought the National Assembly must pass the resolution as soon as possible. We needed to get the lawmakers inside the National Assembly somehow, as there could be bloodshed if the situation dragged on,” Kim said. Even after the resolution was passed, he stayed in the building, wherever he could find space, until the president finally announced he was lifting martial law, six hours after its proclamation.
But Yoon’s tyrannical behavior continued, even after a motion of impeachment against him was passed at the National Assembly on Dec. 14. He said in response, “I’ll never give up.”
Min Byoung-ro, a 60-year-old Chonnam National University law school professor and director of the May 18 Institute established to commemorate the Gwangju Uprising, believes the martial law declaration was ultimately to serve Yoon’s own interests. “The president revealed his obvious intention to dominate power,” Min said. “The constitution defines the requirements for martial law in Article 77. For such a declaration, there must be war, armed conflict or a similar national emergency, but there were none of these.”
Documents released by Democratic Party lawmaker Choo Mi-ae’s office on Dec. 8 reveal that Yoon’s preparations for martial law reference the martial law decree from the coup of May 17, 1980. The documents, which originated from the Defense Security Command, show detailed guidelines for implementing martial law. Hong In-hwa, a 60-year-old former Gwangju city council member, said, “It’s evident that authoritarian sovereign power from the past still influences today.” Hong was a Gwangju Speer Girls’ High School student in 1980 and worked as the director of the May 18 Archives from 2019 to 2023.
Yet Lee Jae-eui noted that troops behaved differently in 1980 and 2024. “The soldiers on the front lines did not suppress the situation too severely,” he said. “They made efforts to maintain certain boundaries. This showed they also knew they needed to follow at least the minimum legal procedures.”
Numerous reports have revealed that many commanders thought the martial law orders were nonsensical and felt ashamed. The forces’ passive response appears to have stemmed partly from commanders delaying implementation of orders; moreover, front-line police and soldiers come from a generation that has been raised in democracy.
“I was deeply moved not only by how passive the martial law forces were but also by seeing citizens blocking tanks and martial law forces with their bodies,” Park Laegoon said.
It appears the most crucial thing the Gwangju Uprising left South Koreans with was resilience, not just trauma. The courage shown by today’s citizens echoes a decisive moment from Gwangju: Around 300 people who fought in the final resistance at the Jeollanam-do Office on May 27, 1980, chose to stay and defend the building, despite knowing their capture was inevitable. “This gave us, today’s generation, a legacy of strength,” Lee said. “They held on, knowing they would die.”
That spirit of bravery and solidarity among Gwangju citizens persisted throughout Gen. Chun Doo-hwan’s seven-year dictatorship, empowering students, workers and citizens. It ultimately fueled the June Democracy Movement of 1987, which became the catalyst for ending military dictatorship and establishing direct presidential elections.
Min believes that what happened in South Korea in December 2024 contradicts the perception of a worldwide shift to the right. “All global citizens will develop the strength, will and interest to prevent such antidemocratic actions from occurring in any country, not just South Korea,” he said.
Park shares this sense of hope. “When you keep up with a movement, there comes a moment when accumulated tension explodes and you can feel the stakes rising. Now is that moment. We are at a historic moment in Korea.”
“The current young generation, especially young women, is leading this situation,” he said. “They have experienced both the Sewol ferry disaster and the Itaewon crowd crush that killed 159 people in 2022. They know not to stay still when the state tells them to because they have seen the exposed face of their nation and politics.”
The young generation Park described is creating a new protest landscape through diverse methods. One notable aspect of the current protests is the participants’ creativity. Rather than limiting themselves to traditional protest songs, demonstrators sing K-pop and wave light sticks, blending contemporary culture with political action.
Kim Eunkyul, one of the thousands who rushed to the National Assembly on the night of Dec. 3, believes democracy begins at these intersections. “I do Pungmullori, instrumental folk music, with my queer minority Pungmul group, and I also play protest songs on the violin,” they said.
But Kim emphasized that today’s democracy remains imperfect, pointing to persistent discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, race, region and species. “It’s time to imagine a new democracy,” they said, “not going back to the democracy we used to have.”
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