South Korea's Unexpected History of Coups and Martial Law – Explained in 30 Seconds

South Korea has only been governed democratically since 1988, following a history of military-authoritarian control extending back to the Korean War. 

South Korea became a democracy only in the late 1980s, and military participation in civilian affairs remains a contentious issue.

 

During the dictatorships that arose as the country recovered from the devastation of the 1950-53 Korean War, leaders occasionally declared martial rule, allowing them to post-combat personnel, tanks, and armored vehicles on streets or in public places to suppress anti-government demonstrations.

 

Many people today cannot even imagine such scenes. 

Park Chung-hee, the dictator who governed South Korea for nearly two decades before being assassinated by his spy chief in 1979, led several thousand troops into Seoul in the early hours of May 16, 1961, in the country's first successful coup. 

During his leadership, he occasionally declared martial law to quell protests and imprison dissidents.

 

Less than two months after Park Chung-hee's death, Maj Gen Chun Doo-hwan led tanks and troops into Seoul in December 1979, launching the country's second successful coup. The following year, he led a savage military response to a pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju, killing at least 200 people.

 

In the summer of 1987, enormous street protests compelled Chun's government to concede to direct presidential elections. His army friend Roh Tae-woo, who had participated in Chun's 1979 coup, won the 1987 election, thanks primarily to a split vote among liberal opposition candidates. 

South Korea became the modern, democratic Sixth Republic with Roh's inauguration on February 25, 1988, after 40 years of various types of military-authoritarian rule and the enactment of its fifth constitution at the time.