Impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol's die-hard supporters threaten 'civil war'

Supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol rally near the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday. (Yonhap)
Supporters of President Yoon Suk Yeol rally near the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday. (Yonhap)

With investigators and police preparing to make a second attempt to detain impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on a court-ordered warrant, South Korean politics is descending further into chaos, with Yoon sympathizers now invoking the term “civil war” to warn against a violent clash.

Rep. Kwon Seong-dong, floor leader of Yoon’s ruling People Power Party, on Friday warned the nation’s police against mobilizing forces to take Yoon into custody.

“If violence erupts, and especially if anyone is injured, during the attempt to execute the arrest warrant against the president, the police should be held responsible,” he said.

Later in the day, the police called in over 1,000 investigators from across the country for a meeting to map out plans to access the presidential residence in Yongsan-gu, which the Presidential Security Service has barricaded with multiple buses and rows of barbed wire fencing. The total number of PSS employees are estimated at nearly 500.

The impeached leader is wanted for questioning as part of investigations into his short-lived imposition of martial law on Dec. 3. Yoon has refused to appear despite three police summons.

Investigators' first attempt to detain him on Jan. 3 failed after an hourslong standoff with the presidential bodyguards.

Far-right politicians and their die-hard supporters have since been rallying around the embattled but defiant leader, claiming that the joint probe team forcing their way past the PSS guards into the presidential residence to arrest and investigate Yoon could trigger an armed conflict.

On Thursday, Seok Dong-hyeon, an attorney and former prosecutor who has known Yoon for a long time but who is not Yoon's legal representative, said in a press conference in Seoul that the probe team's attempt to detain Yoon by force will trigger "enormous backlash from enraged citizens, which would amount to a civil war."

"We are almost approaching the state of civil war," Seok later reiterated, alluding to the possibility that the police could deploy armored vehicles or helicopters to the presidential residence to carry out the court warrant. The police have denied such speculations.

When asked whether Yoon takes the same stance as Seok, he declined to reveal who first used the term, "civil war," but signaled that Yoon and his legal representatives, whom Seok has been helping, feel this way.

This photo shows a group of people wearing white hard hats surrounded by police on Jan. 3 near the presidential residence in Seoul. (Yonhap)
This photo shows a group of people wearing white hard hats surrounded by police on Jan. 3 near the presidential residence in Seoul. (Yonhap)

Seok's comments followed another controversial press conference at the National Assembly Thursday, organized by Rep. Kim Meen-geon of the ruling party.

There, Kim was accompanied by five people appearing to be in their 20s and 30s wearing white hard hats, reminiscent of the Baekgoldan or "white skull" riot police squad, which was notorious for using violent tactics to crack down on protesters fighting for South Korea's democratization in the 1980s and early 1990s.

One of the people wearing such a white hard hat said, "Police's use of special force to attempt to detain the sitting president is a very risky (decision) that could trigger civil war."

Later on Friday, Yoon's legal representatives said in a statement that main opposition party members have been directing the police's deployment of armed officers and firearms, which it claimed was "an insurrection intended to disrupt the constitutional order."

A former lawmaker of the conservative party, Lee Jung-hyun, also said in an interview with local media outlet Maeil Ilbo Friday that "we should view this not as an insurrection, but as a civil war, and we should confront it with that determination," given the "anti-state forces" within South Korea.

He also claimed that Yoon is going all out to end such civil war, as he was seeking to stamp out such alleged anti-state forces and rule out North Korea-led reunification.

But detractors said Yoon sympathizers' attempt to block the joint probe team's investigation of Yoon's botched martial law declaration on Dec. 3 are backfiring.

Rep. Chun Ha-ram, lawmaker of the minor opposition Reform Party said in a radio interview with KBS on Friday that Yoon's sympathizers are rather "causing the civil war to happen."

Former presidents, including Chun Doo-hwan who led a military coup in 1980, "have conceded to court-ordered arrest warrants, because defiance (of the court warrant) could lead to a civil war," he also said.

Rep. Chun of the Reform Party added that Yoon's defiance of the court warrant translates into a show of disrespect for the constitutional order.

The Seoul Western District Court on Tuesday extended the validity of the warrant to detain Yoon that it earlier issued on Dec. 31 at the request of the joint probe team. Yoon's legal representatives have denied the warrant's legitimacy, as the Constitutional Court said Friday it was examining the legal grounds of the warrant. The district court earlier upheld its decision to issue the warrant.