Witness reveals martial law night

I once met a former senior National Intelligence Service (NIS) official during the early days of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. He remarked, “Why are there so many special advisers to the Director of National Intelligence? I don’t even know what they do.” At that time, the NIS had several special advisers to the director, each specializing in different areas. These special advisers, who work in the NIS building, are appointed by the president. The former official complained that President Yoon, who did not trust the then-NIS Director Kim Kyou-hyun, a former diplomat, was using these special advisers to control the NIS’s internal affairs—an abnormal way of operating.

Kim faced trust issues from the president throughout his tenure and was dismissed in November last year following an unprecedented personnel shakeup in June. Hong Jang-won, formerly a special adviser to the head of the NIS, was appointed as the NIS's first deputy director shortly after the dismissal. Due to his close ties to the president, Hong was considered a candidate for the next NIS chief and served as the acting head of the intelligence agency for nearly two months before a new director was appointed. He reported directly to the president on North Korean developments and was even invited to several drinking occasions presided over by the president. He was quite literally treated as special, as his title, ‘special adviser to the president.’

On Tuesday night, two hours before President Yoon declared martial law, he called Hong directly on his secure phone. “I’ll have something important to tell you in an hour or two, so keep your phone on,” he said. Two hours later, Yoon stated, “I’ll give you the authority to conduct spy investigations, so help and support the Defense Counterintelligence Command. Take this opportunity to catch them all and clean up the mess.” The order was to track down politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties, including Woo Won-sik, Han Dong-hoon, and Lee Jae-myung, and assist the Defense Counterintelligence Command in arresting them. The intelligence agencies were thrust into the midst of an anachronistic martial law.

He discussed it with a former senior NIS official whom he considered a mentor, and it was eventually exposed on Friday as a ‘plan to illegally arrest and detain politicians using intelligence agencies.’ In the National Assembly that day, Hong described the process in detail. Concerns about a second declaration of martial law and a sense of justice prompted his revelations, according to a government official who observed them. “The president's trust and unjust orders are two different things,” Hong emphasized. After his disclosure and subsequent replacement, Hong told those around him, “I suddenly feel free and happy, although I feel like my whole body has been beaten up....”

Hong, who was selected as a representative Hwarang upon graduating from the Korean Military Academy, took great pride in his work at the National Intelligence Service's overseas division. However, what left a scar on him was the Yoon Suk Yeol prosecution's investigation into the alleged misuse of special activity expenses by the head of the National Intelligence Service. While the investigation into the NIS regarding the manipulation of internet comments was what first brought Yoon to prominence, the special activity expense allegation marked the second investigation into the NIS. “The NIS shouldn't be doing this,” Yoon said, pushing forward with the inquiry. How can we reconcile the fact that a prosecutor who twice investigated NIS misconduct later appointed an NIS official who had been a subject of one of those investigations to a key position after becoming president, ordered him to commit illegal acts, and was ultimately rejected by that very official? There could be no more evident example of divisive and contradictory behavior leading to self-destruction.

The cabinet members, including the prime minister and the staff of the president's office, were appointed to high positions because they had the president's trust. What is important to note, as Mr. Hong pointed out, is that being trusted by the president is one thing, but refusing to obey an unjust order is another. The witnesses of that night—the cabinet members, the president's staff, the soldiers, the police, and others—should tell the public the truth as they know it. It is important to remember that cooperating with the truth about martial law does not make you a traitor to the president; it makes you a historian.