By Paul Liem | December 4, 2024
On December 4, 2024, hundreds of activists rallied in New York, Los Angeles and San Franciso in support of the Korean peoples struggle to demand the resignation of President Yoon Suk Yeol after his failed attempt to suppress the opposition parties in the National Assembly by declaring Martial, December 2. The rallies were organized by the U.S. Out of Korea Campaign which was launched by Nodutdol for Community Development. The following is a solidarity statement delivered by KPI board member, Paul Liem, at the San Francisco rally.
The Korea Policy Institute stands in solidarity with the struggle of the South Korean people to oust the dictator Yoon Suk Yeol from power and to make way for a leadership that will represent their true interests - to place prosperity for the common good over profits for the few; to demand sincere apology and just compensation from Japan for its crimes against the Korean people during WWII; to establish a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and a framework within which separated families can be reunited.
For his crime of insurrection, Yoon and those who plotted with him should be punished swiftly, but we must prepare for protracted struggle. Yoon has shown no remorse for his actions, nor any sign that he will resign voluntarily. Impeachment can only succeed with a National Assembly vote of two thirds, in favor. For this to happen at least 8 members of Yoon’s Peoples Power Party will have to defect. I hope they will, but we cannot count on it. Until now and the day when Korea will be free from the scourge of Yoon and the self-entitled First Lady, Kim Keon Hee, we in the US must work tirelessly to support the Korean people’s struggle against fascism until victory, even as we struggle against fascism here.
This is a dangerous time for Korea, but not because of any threat posed by the DPRK, and not because of the developing alliance between the DPRK and Russia. It is dangerous because the neoliberal social order upon which US global hegemony rests is in political and economic crisis everywhere; in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Middle East, and even in the US. As a result, the US is going to desperate lengths to preserve its global hegemony at the cost of war in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine, war against Iran, regime change in Venezuela, and threatening war against China and the DPRK, to name a few.
Yoon must go, not only because he is, in essence, a dictator in the same vein as Chun Du Hwan, Park Geun Hye, Park Chung Hee and Syngman Rhee. But because like them, he willingly places the interests of the U.S. ahead of the interests of the Korean people, and as a consequence Korea has been a divided country since liberation from Japan in 1945, in a state of war for the past 70 years, and today is the linchpin in a US/Japan/SK trilateral military alliance preparing to go to war with China and the DPRK, both nuclear armed countries.
The peace-loving people of the ROK have no such interests in war with China and/or threatening the DPRK with regime change. For these reasons, and for his crime of insurrection against the democratic institutions of the ROK, the dictator, Yoon, Must Go.
Paul Liem is the Chair of the Korea Policy Institute Board of Directors.
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