Drone Flights and Tensions Between Countries on the Rise
The memos show that secret drone missions took place from South Korea to North Korea's capital in October of last year. Kim Yo Jong reacted strongly to reports that these drones had dropped leaflets against the regime. The leaders of North Korea said they would cut off road and rail links to the South and destroy two roads in their own country, but they did not take any military action.
Yoon declared martial law weeks after this event, saying it was necessary to keep the South safe from "North Korean communist forces." The order was quickly changed after lawmakers pushed their way past deployed troops to make it invalid. This was the start of a long political reckoning for the former president, which is still going on in court today.
The most recent indictment builds on these claims and suggests that the drone missions were done on purpose to cause instability. Yoon has denied all of the accusations, saying that there was no order to provoke North Korea. His lawyer, Yoo Jeong-hwa, said the indictment was unfair and didn't have a legal basis. However, prosecutors said that the memos they found left them "appalled," pointing to written plans that seem to back up their case.
State-run media in the North had already shown pictures of a drone stuck in a tree, which experts said looked a lot like a South Korean unmanned aerial vehicle. They also showed pictures of a drone flying low over the house of the North Korean leader. Kim Byung-joo, a retired four-star general and current lawmaker, says that whistleblowers from South Korea's Drone Operations Command confirmed that there were at least three flights on October 3, October 8-9, and November 13.
Kim said that the flights seemed like they were meant to get a military response and called the tactic "putting a knife to the neck" of the North. On October 12, Kim Yo Jong replied with a stern warning of "severe consequences." At first, defense minister Kim Yong-hyun said the drones didn't come from the South, but later he said it wasn't possible to confirm this.
After Yoon's failed declaration of martial law, the controversy grew. The current ruling party, the Democratic Party, asked for an investigation, which led to the appointment of an independent counsel. The memos that were shared on Monday are said to contain instructions for making conditions right for a crisis with North Korea. There was a message from October 18 on the phone of former Defense Counterintelligence Commander Yeo In-hyung that suggested making things "unstable" to take advantage of a rare chance.
Another note listed places that the planners thought would make North Korea respond, such as Pyongyang, nuclear sites, Kim's vacation homes, and the symbolic areas of Samjiyon and Wonsan. People love Samjiyon because it is close to where Kim Jong Il was born and where the Kim family fought against the Japanese. One of Kim Jong Un's biggest development projects is Wonsan-Kalma.
There were also notes about making a "national security crisis" or even "Noah's flood," which could mean a big change. A memo from November 5 said that "enemy action must come first," and it talked about the need for a situation that was out of police control and conditions that would make harsher measures necessary.
Park Ji-young, a spokesperson for the prosecutors, said that some information could not be made public, but he did say that evidence from the notebook of former Defense Intelligence Commander Noh Sang-won showed that plans for martial law began in October 2023 after a big change in military leadership. Park called the actions that top officials are said to have taken "absolutely unacceptable."
General Kim Byung-joo was surprised that North Korea didn't respond more strongly when drones were seen over the capital. He said it was "godsend luck" that the North only gave warnings, because any retaliation could have led to localized conflict. Kim also said that North Korea sending more than 10,000 troops to Russia for the war in Ukraine might have stopped things from getting worse, since opening another front would have weakened its military.
Political fallout and legal consequences
Yoon, Kim, and Yeo, all former defense officials, are now being charged with abusing their power and hurting the state's interests by allegedly helping the enemy. All three are also on trial for trying to overthrow the government during martial law. The South Korean military has not said anything about the case that is still going on. Reports from the area say that Yeo wishes he had not followed the order.
Yoon, who was elected in 2022, never had the support of a majority in parliament and had trouble moving forward with important policies. The growing anger led to the declaration of martial law on December 3. Armed soldiers were sent by helicopter to the parliament during this time. Citizens and staff fought back by building barricades as lawmakers pushed their way through to overturn the decree. The move caused a lot of people to protest, go to court, and eventually Yoon's impeachment.
Experts say that flying drones over the North without permission could be seen as acts of war, breaking the long-standing ceasefire that has been in place on the Korean Peninsula since 1953. Analysts say that using military tension for political gain is very dangerous and could hurt international relations, even with the US, which has a lot of troops in the area.
