People watch as President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers an address Saturday after the National Assembly voted to impeach him. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was suspended from his duties following a National Assembly vote on Saturday, said in his last address to the nation that he ordered troops to retreat from parliament on the night he imposed martial law.
Yoon’s account contrasts with what military commanders have said about the events of Dec. 3-4.
“I said only a small number of troops would be brought in (to the National Assembly) to maintain order, and they won’t be armed with live ammunition, and once the parliament votes to lift martial law, they will be withdrawn immediately,” the president said in the address Thursday, two days before the bill for his impeachment was passed.
Yoon said as soon as the Assembly voted against martial law, he summoned Kim Yong-hyun, who was defense minister at the time, to his office and ordered that the troops immediately leave the parliament grounds.
Gen. Kwak Jong-geun, the Army’s special warfare commander, told lawmakers earlier this week, however, that he made the decision to end all related missions and move the special forces troops out of the Assembly after a bipartisan vote rejected the president’s martial law declaration.
In Thursday’s address, Yoon also claimed he dispatched no troops until after he announced he was imposing martial law.
“I ordered the defense minister to send troops after I informed the South Korean people about martial law being declared through the televised announcement,” he said.
But Maj. Gen. Moon Sang-ho, the Army’s intelligence commander, said he was told to be on stand-by near the election commission building nearly an hour and a half before the president went live on TV to announce martial law.
Statements given by commanders involved in the occupation of the Assembly appeared to contradict each other as well.
In an interview with Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers, Kwak, the special warfare commander, said he had received orders from Kim, the former defense minister, to remove Assembly members from the chamber, but disobeyed them.
“I judged that forcibly removing lawmakers from the National Assembly was clearly illegal, and while I knew it could be considered insubordination, I did not carry out the mission,” Kwak said.
However, Col. Kim Hyun-tae, commander of the Special Warfare Comand’s 707 special mission group, said in a press conference he ordered his troops to break into the Assembly without knowing at the time that it was illegal, indicating that the orders had been passed on.
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