한국에서 쿠데타가 일어날뻔/A Coup, Almost, in South Korea

A Coup, Almost, in South Korea

President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, then backed off , in a matter of hours. He now faces impeachment and mass protests.

By

E. Tammy Kim/December 4, 2024, The NEW YORKER

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한국에서 쿠데타가 일어날뻔 [기사링크]

    almost: 거의, 하마터면 (결국은 실패함)
    coup: 쿠데타 (비상계엄 선포를 민주주의를 거스르는 군사반란으로 표현)

윤석렬 대통령이 계엄(martial law)을 선포(declare) 했다가 몇시간 만에(in a matter of hours) 철회했다(backed off). 그는 이제 탄핵과 국민적 저항에 부디치게 됐다.

    declare; 법력 선포로 decree 가 많이 쓰인다.
    a matter of hours: 단 몇시간 만에 (짧은 시간을 강조하고 있다)
    It's a matter of time. 시간문제다. (time 은 불가산 명사. hour는 가산명사 라서 복수가 붙음)
    back off: 물러서다

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<중략>

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He called for a preëmptive strike against North Korea; he used the police and prosecutors to attack political opponents, journalists, and unions. His wife, Kim Keon-hee, appeared to exercise undue control over the executive office, and was credibly accused of graft, bribery,and election interference. (They have denied wrongdoing.)

그는 북한에 맞서 선제적 타격을 주장했다. 그리고 경찰과 검찰을 정적들, 언론인들 그리고 노동조합을 공격하는데 사용했다. 그의 아내 김건희가 대통령실(the executive office) 뒤에서(over) 지나친 통제(undue control)를 행사(exercise)하는 것처럼 여겨졌고 수뢰(graft), 뇌물(bribery) 그리고 선거방해(부정선거)의 명백한(credibly) 혐의를 받고 있다(was accused of). 당사자들은 부인 하고 있다.

    exercise undue control over the executive office: 대통령실을 뒤에서 조종하고 있다.
    graft: 뇌물 받기, bribery 뇌물 주기

In September, Yoon reshuffled his cabinet, appointing a new defense minister, which now seems to have been a way of preparing for whatever Tuesday night was.

9월에 내각을 개편 하면서 지금와서 보니(now) 화요일 밤에 벌인 사건(whatever~)을 오랜동안 준비해 온 것으로 보이는 국방장관을 새로 지명 했었다.

Might his intended coup—and the social and political response that stopped it—also be a preview, or portent, of a second Trump Administration?

I spent most of November in South Korea and happened to fly back on Monday night. (Bad journalistic timing.) The country I saw was decidedly not on the precipice, as Yoon said in his martial-law declaration—but he and his wife were. In Seoul, Gwangju, and Cheonan, there were banners everywhere demanding “Yoon Suk-yeol OUT!” Rallies against him were held frequently. His approval rate was around twenty-five percent. There was a sense of pessimism and strain beneath the smooth layers of daily life.

A journalist friend described feeling constant anxiety as he went out to report. I met with a lawyer involved in opposition politics who cited Yoon and Trump’s reëlection and the wars in Ukraine and Palestine as proof of a morbid historical moment.

Yet he believedYoon’s impeachment and removal from office to be imminent, given just how much misconduct was coming to light.

We will know, very soon, whether his prediction was correct. On Wednesday, law makers in a number of parties brought a motion to impeach, which Yoon’s party later said it would oppose. Several Presidential aides resigned, and international summits were postponed.

Large crowds began gathering to demandthat Yoon step down. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the successor to the industrial-labor activists who helped power the democracy movement of the nineteen-eighties, called for a general strike until Yoon is gone, potentially disrupting public transit. (Rail and subway workers were already planning to strike later this week.)

It feels a bit like 2016 and 2017, when the mounting scandals around then-President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the military dictator Park Chung-hee, were enough to draw tens of millions to peaceful candlelight protests.

In a sad irony, Yoon himself was one of the lead prosecutors in her eventual impeachment and imprisonment. But many of those demonstrators have since hung back, owing to political exhaustion. But Tuesday night was a mass infusion of adrenaline, if nothing else.

슬픈 모순이게도 그녀의 탄핵과 수감하게 만든 지휘 검사중 하나가 윤 그자신이었다. 하지만 정치적인 피로 탓에(owing) 수많은 시위자들이 망설이고 있었다. 적어도(if nothing else) 화요일 밤의 사건은 대량의 분노를 불어 넣었다. (아무리 그래도 계엄이라니 못참지!)