This is a ‘Letter to the People’ written by President Yoon Seok-yeol himself with a fountain pen
overnight at the beginning of the new year.
I am uploading the original manuscript in its original handwriting.
<Letter to the People>
Citizens,
Did you have many good dreams for the New Year?
I hope that you will have many happy events
in the New Year of Eulsa.
After I was impeached on December 14th last year,
I had a lot of time to think alone.
It is a bit ironic,
but now that I have been impeached,
I finally feel that I am the president.
After 26 years of public service, 8 months of presidential campaigning,
being elected president and taking over the government, and taking office as president…
Since taking office, I have been working so hard from dawn to late at night,
I think I have not been able to think of myself as the president.
There have been many things that I have had to think about,
discuss, and make difficult decisions on public service appointments,
election pledges and state affairs, current issues and crisis management,
diplomacy, security, economy, and social issues.
Since my school days, I have lived with the idea that ability is effort,
so I have worked hard and fiercely without fail.
There were many people who advised me to have authority and take a break as a president,
but the situation inside and outside the country has not been easy since I took office.
We have been faced with exogenous economic crises such as global security and supply chain crises,
high prices, high interest rates, and high exchange rates.
The explosive increase in national debt due to the populist policies of the previous government,
the problem of household loans due to the failure of real estate policies,
and the increase in the minimum wage due to the small business policy,
and the worsening management and loan problems of the self-employed,
small business owners, and small and medium-sized enterprises,
made it more difficult to overcome the economic crisis.
However, thanks to the people who trusted and followed me
and the government despite the difficult circumstances,
we were able to gradually resolve the current issues and crises.
As a result of abolishing the punitive taxation policy
and faithfully implementing the real estate policy based on market principles,
we managed housing prices stably,
connected the diplomacy and economy of a global pivotal country,
developed overseas markets, and made efforts to export,
we achieved the highest export performance ever last year,
and almost caught up with Japan, which has a population 2.5 times larger than ours.
Our GDP per capita surpassed Japan’s last year.
The nuclear base upgrade of the ROK-US alliance,
strengthening the comprehensive strategic alliance,
and the ROK-US-Japan trilateral cooperation system through the normalization of ROK-Japan relations,
have firmly supported our economy’s external credibility.
The past two and a half years, when we have been running around here
and there for security, economy, and social reform, pass by like a panorama.
I have many regrets, thinking that I should have listened more wisely and done better.
Looking back on the last presidential election period and the two and a half years since my inauguration,
I think of the faces of each and every citizen who believed in and supported me despite my shortcomings,
and I think of those who drag their tired bodies to work early in the morning, students
who go out carrying their school bags to prepare for the future in the cold morning,
and those who suffer in difficult circumstances with sick and uncomfortable bodies.
I feel regretful that I cannot visit you and help you.
I think that it is because of this regret that
I finally think, “I am the president,” after diligently going around and working,
and then being suspended from my duties.
This suspension from my duties is the fourth suspension from my duties in my public service career.
I have been suspended from my duties three times in total,
once as a prosecutor and twice as the Prosecutor General.
People around me say that I am foolish for not making compromises and taking the easy way out.
When you are suspended from duty due to a foolish choice,
people close to you turn their backs on you and you feel lonely,
but as time passes, misunderstandings are resolved,
and the support and encouragement of many people become strength.
My foolish decisions have always been based on
my unchanging belief in liberal democracy and the rule of law.
A democracy that is not liberal democracy is a fake democracy,
and a dictatorship and totalitarianism that borrows the name of democracy.
Democracy is a system that protects individual freedom,
and liberal democracy is realized through the rule of law.
In addition, the rule of law is the way
in which the freedom of all people in our community coexists.
The rule of law is realized by rational laws that respect freedom and fair judges.
The rule of law is a core element of liberal democracy.
In the economy, liberal democracy combines with the principles of a free market economy,
to achieve our prosperity through autonomy and creativity,
and to create abundant welfare and resources for solidarity,
and to create a virtuous cycle of prosperity.
Our country has no natural resources,
but it has excellent human resources
and has developed through open and active international trade.
Today, the world is a place where all countries have complex relationships with each other
in security, economy, and raw material supply chains.
In order to continue our prosperity and pass it on to future generations,
solidarity with countries that share the values of freedom
and the rule of law is especially important.
Of course, countries that do not make hostile attacks on us,
even if their systems and values are different,
should cooperate in the realistic aspects of mutual respect
and the pursuit of common interests.
However, if a country has a different system and values from ours
and is engaging in a hostile influence offensive against us,
we must always be on guard and protect our sovereignty
and prevent it from being damaged.
We must always be on guard against hostile influence operations by external forces
that encroach on our sovereignty.
In this way, we can block the influence of such forces,
prevent them from underestimating us,
and realize mutual respect and common interests.
We must be vigilant and careful to enjoy common prosperity and peace.
After the establishment of the UN after World War II,
it was prohibited under international law to resolve disputes
for any reason through military attacks and wars,
and wars other than for defensive purposes were prohibited.
Military attacks and provocations of wars
that shed blood with guns and swords were prohibited under international law,
so even for powerful countries they became a great diplomatic burden,
and gray zone tactics that did not involve guns and swords became widely used.
Psychological warfare through false propaganda,
political warfare such as bribing politicians and interfering in elections,
cyber warfare that attacks digital systems,
and hybrid tactics that combine military demonstrations and threats were widely used.
Information warfare such as the theft of national secrets
and key industrial technology information is also included in hybrid warfare.
So, modern emerging security is very comprehensive and diverse,
going beyond military-political security,
including economic security, health and environmental security,
energy and food security, advanced technology security, cyber security, and disaster security.
Military-political security includes information protection, security,
and blocking various influence operations.
Military provocations and wars are political acts that infringe on the sovereignty of the other country,
but they do not engage in military provocations and wars prohibited by international law,
and instead use various gray zone hybrid warfare in which the attack
and the responsible party are not clearly revealed, as a means of infringement on sovereignty.
In particular, authoritarian dictatorships and totalitarian states are trying to keep many countries,
including neighboring countries, under their sphere of influence or colonies in order to maintain their regimes.
If domestic political forces join hands with external forces that infringe on sovereignty,
it is advantageous to gain political power with the help of their influence operations.
However, there is no free lunch.
We must give up our core national interests.
Not only does it give away national secrets, industrial technology information,
but it also destroys solidarity with countries that share the value of freedom,
and invites diplomatic isolation.
It is an anti-state act that clearly goes against the national interest.
This force continues to commit anti-state acts
that go against the national interest not only when it is the ruling party,
but also when it becomes a huge opposition party
that holds a large number of seats in the National Assembly.
With its strong National Assembly power and National Assembly dictatorship,
it thoroughly blocks the ruling party’s state administration through legislation and budget blockade,
and paralyzes state administration.
It goes beyond political differences of opinion between the ruling
and opposition parties and checks and balances,
and pushes for the abandonment of anti-state interests,
and paralysis of state administration, and the collapse of constitutional order.
This is not a story from another country.
It is the reality of the Republic of Korea.
Any political force has to keep an eye on the voters,
so it is difficult to continue its outrageous tyranny
but if it is confident that it can secure the National Assembly seats
as planned or take over the administrative power
at any time through election manipulation what can it not do?
There is so much evidence of election fraud in our country’s elections.
The National Election Commission’s fake system
that makes this possible has also been exposed.
We cannot dismiss election fraud as a conspiracy theory
just because there is insufficient evidence to punish a specific person for election fraud.
A number of bodies were found stabbed to death,
but we cannot insist that there was no murder
and that it was a normal natural death just because the murderer was not identified.
A normal country governed by the rule of law should actively request an investigation by the investigative agency
and everyone should cooperate to find the culprit.
If a huge number of fake ballots were discovered in the ballot box counting of the election lawsuit,
and the National Election Commission’s computer system is vulnerable to hacking and manipulation,
and falls far short of the standards of a normal national agency’s computer system,
and if they not only make no effort to correct this,
but also refuse to verify and confirm whether the announced number of voters matches the actual number of voters,
then a total election fraud system has been put into operation.
This is an act of stealing the sovereignty of the people and an act of destroying liberal democracy.
In a normal country that pursues liberal democracy and the rule of law,
the Supreme Court Justice and the National Election Commission,
who discovered this in the election lawsuit,
should have requested an investigation and actively cooperated in the investigation to
thoroughly confirm whether such illegal election activities occurred.
Nevertheless, they covered it up. Many bodies of murdered people have been found,
and if the families of the victims are not found to have evidence to prove who the culprit is,
and are not finally punished, then if they attack the talk of murder as a conspiracy theory,
is this a country?
The rigged election system, which is made up of digital systems and fake ballots,
is not something that an inexperienced political force in a country can
attempt and promote on its own.
If they make a mistake and are caught, the political force can collapse.
It is something that is difficult to even imagine doing alone.
At best, it would be bribery, trading of interests, and manipulation of public opinion.
However, the rigged election system that connects rigged voting
and poll manipulation shows that the political force
that is trying to do this needs international solidarity and cooperation.
The rigged election system is comprised of a public opinion poll system
controlled by a specific political force,
and the National Election Commission’s refusal to confirm and conceal.
The failure to identify the murderer,
and the creation of public opinion that the murder is a conspiracy theory,
also constitutes one axis of the voting fraud system.
As you all know,
If this is the reality of our country,
Is this current situation a crisis?
Is it normal?
Is this situation a national emergency, equivalent to wartime or an emergency?
If wartime and an emergency are physical situations
that occur on our national territory, i.e., a hardware crisis,
then our current reality is a crisis of our country’s
operating system and software.
Article 66 of the Constitution states that the President, as the head of state,
represents the country and has the responsibility to protect the independence of the country,
the integrity of the territory, the continuity of the country, and the Constitution.
In simple terms, it gives the President the responsibility to protect the hardware of the Republic of Korea
and protect the operating system and software.
The situation in which the giant opposition party,
through its dictatorship in the National Assembly,
blocks legislation and the budget, paralyzes state affairs,
promotes discontent with the government
and division of public opinion by abusing unconstitutional
and abnormal laws that go against the national interest,
suspends high-ranking public officials from their duties through dozens of impeachments,
and even impeaches prosecutors
and the chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection who investigate and audit their corruption,
and recklessly pushes forward bulletproof legislation to cover up their corruption,
is a national crisis for the operating system of the Republic of Korea,
and the president has a responsibility to protect this operating system.
When I saw that they were trying to impeach the chairman of the Board of Audit and Inspection,
a constitutional institution, and place him in the court of the Constitutional Court,
which is also a constitutional institution,
I thought that emergency measures were necessary to fulfill the duty to protect the Constitution.
The series of actions by the giant opposition party were judged to be a state of national emergency equivalent to wartime or an incident,
and the president was to exercise the martial law authority exclusively granted to him.
Martial law was limited to preparing for war in the past,
but our Constitution stipulates that it is a ‘state of national emergency equivalent to this,’
and anticipates various national crises other than war as situations in which martial law should be declared.
The first thing a president of a free democratic country should do
in a national crisis is to inform the sovereign people of the national crisis
and appeal to them to work together to overcome it.
The national crisis should not be overcome with the military and dictatorial administrative power alone,
but should be overcome by sharing the situation with the sovereign people and receiving their cooperation.
Doesn’t the word martial law mean to inform the seriousness of the situation and to be on guard?
I tried to protect liberal democracy and constitutional order by informing the people
who are not fully aware that our country’s liberal democracy
and national sovereignty are in a state of crisis,
and by making the sovereign people watch
and criticize the ruinous corruption of the National Assembly
dictatorship with their eyes wide open.
Therefore, I instructed the Minister of National Defense to
deploy the minimum necessary number of troops to inform the people of the National Assembly dictatorship,
maintain order, and properly inform the people of the fraudulent election system,
and to determine the truth.
280 troops were deployed to the National Assembly
and 290 troops to the National Election Commission.
The 280 troops deployed to the National Assembly
were on standby in the National Assembly yard,
and the troops deployed to the National Election Commission
only a few dozen digital agents were able to access the internal system,
while the rest were on standby outside,
and immediately withdrew 2 hours and 30 minutes after martial law was declared
when the National Assembly passed a resolution demanding the lifting of martial law,
and it ended peacefully without any casualties or damage.
My fellow citizens,
martial law is not a crime.
martial law is the exercise of the president’s authority to overcome a national crisis.
That is why the martial law department exists in the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to assist the president in exercising his authority.
I was also impeached due to the frame offensive of ‘martial law = rebellion’
and the Minister of National Defense and military officials who prepared and executed it are now under arrest.
This is truly absurd.
The deployment time for troops was only 2 hours,
but can there be a 2-hour rebellion?
Have you ever seen a civil war where they announce to the whole world
and the entire nation that they are starting, and then within 3 hours,
the National Assembly tells them to stop, they withdraw their troops and stop?
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff martial law and martial law manual,
national martial law presupposes the use of at least 6~7 divisions,
and tens of thousands of troops.
The Minister of National Defense,
who served as the Chief of Operations
and the Chief of Operations Headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, must know this.
Since it is an appeal to the people in the form of martial law,
they planned a small number of troops.
Since National Assembly members and National Assembly staff
were allowed to enter the National Assembly after checking their IDs,
the deliberation on the resolution demanding the lifting of martial law was carried out quickly,
and in the main building and yard, thousands of people surrounded the 280 troops.
In accordance with the order to withdraw troops,
the troops politely greeted the citizens in the yard and withdrew.
Were they trying to close the National Assembly? Or did they plan a riot?
Recently, the opposition party’s impeachment officials
withdrew the charge of sedition from the charges at the Constitutional Court.
Since the charge of sedition can never be established,
they took the right measure.
However, if they impeach him for sedition,
and then remove the charge of sedition in the trial,
then isn’t it a fraudulent impeachment, a fraudulent prosecution?
Looking at the situation after the impeachment,
I wonder if the politicians who boast of having participated in the democracy movement for so long are right.
However, when I see that many citizens and young people have recently come to
recognize the crisis in our country and have a sense of their rights and responsibilities as sovereigns,
I think they did a good job informing the people of the national crisis and appealing to them,
and I feel deep gratitude to the people.
Since I ran for president,
I have known well that the position of president of our country is not a path of glory,
but a path of suffering. However, as I promised to establish this country’s liberal democracy
and fight against the totalitarian vested interests that turn a blind eye to freedom and the rule of law
and restore sovereignty to the people, I personally have no regrets regarding what happens.
Would I have imposed martial law in this way to extend my term of office?
With such a small mini-force and martial law for a very short period of time?
I do not know what the judicial judgment will be,
but I believe that the people know well
whether this martial law is for protecting the Constitution and saving the country.
In the past, members of the National Assembly
resisted the dictatorship of the president and fought for democracy,
but as the president who has been given the responsibility to protect the Constitution,
I must naturally resist and fight against the brutality of the parliamentary dictatorship
that is unprecedented in the constitutional history of any country in the world.
It is to normalize the functions of the state and protect liberal democracy.
When I look at the current judicial reality,
where arrest warrants are issued by agencies without investigative authority,
and judges arbitrarily lift restrictions on search
and seizure by law through judicial shopping
rather than normal jurisdiction,
and illegal and invalid warrants are issued, and thousands of riot police are mobilized to enforce them,
and a presidential security guard is arrested in the act of obstructing
the execution of the warrant by trespassing in a Class 1 military facility protection zone,
I can’t believe that the legal profession that I have experienced for 26 years is like this.
I feel bitterly certain that my judgment that our country is currently
in a serious state of national ruin was not wrong,
because I wonder what those who disdain liberal democracy would do if they held the sword of power.
Liberal democracy and the rule of law are two sides of the same coin.
The rule of law that realizes liberal democracy is not a formal rule of law or a rule of law that uses tricks.
This kind of rule of law is abused in a people’s democratic dictatorship, a totalitarian state, to suppress freedom.
Laws should be created to realize the constitutional spirit of liberal democracy,
and once created, laws should not be governed by majority rule,
but should thoroughly protect minorities and individual rights.
When the leftist movement in our country was not the mainstream,
it also relied on this protection of the rule of law,
but after it occupied an absolute majority of seats in the National Assembly,
it prioritizes majority democracy over actual rule of law,
and democratic control over control under the rule of law.
When I was the Prosecutor General, I experienced this kind of lawless tyranny of the Democratic Party regime.
If this happens, lawyers and legal professionals will be reduced to servants of political power.
But, citizens, cheer up.
If the sovereign people have a firm sense of rights
and responsibilities and try to protect them,
the future of this country is bright and hopeful.
Thank you, citizens.
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