New rumors arrive from South Korea which allow us to reconstruct, at least in part, what might have pushed the president of the country, Yoon Suk Yeolto declare martial law nationwide, only to then withdraw it, facingimpeachment and generating a worrying power vacuum in Seoul. In particular, in the last few hours, the police seized the personal notebook of a former soldier who became a confidant and key advisor to the former defense minister of South Korea. Noh Sang Wonformer head of the Defense Intelligence Command (Dic) in the city of Ansan, 30 kilometers south-west of the capital, had written in his diary about the need to provoke North Korea Of Kim Jong Un to justify the state of emergency in the country. That this note is somehow also linked to the mysterious ones drones spotted by North Korean authorities in the skies of Pyongyang last October?
The secret notebook
As part of the police investigation into Yoon's dismissal and the arrest of the former defense minister Kim Yong Hyundetained for his role in the recent declaration of martial law, useful information emerges to understand the background of the recent crisis. According to details released by the police, Noh's notebook, of approx 60 pagesincluded a simple notation that read “provoke a Northern attack on the Nll“, in an obvious reference to Northern Limit Line (Nll)the line that marks the maritime border of the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea and a point of particular tension, as Pyongyang does not recognize the demarcation, originally drawn by the United Nations Command, at the end of the Korean War (1950-1953).
The discovery would be in line with the accusations of the South Korean opposition: the deputies of the Liberal Democratic Party (PD) believe that there is evidence that the former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong Hyun attempted to provoke amilitary action from the North to justify the martial law. In turn, Noh, a close associate of Kim, is also detained for his alleged role in planning the state of emergency declared on December 3. Yoon, dismissed by Parliament and awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Court on his future.
In relation to martial law, the notebook also contains other notes such as “close the National Assembly (the country's Parliament ed.)“, apparently to prevent MPs from voting to repeal martial law – which they managed to do on the night of the proceedings – as well as including a list of politicians, journalists, religious figures, trade union leaders and judges such as “arrest targets“. The figure of Noh began to be known to the public after he was accused of having met last December 1st in the premises of a well-known South Korean hamburger chain with his collaborators – including the current commander of the DIC, Moon Sang -ho – to plan the operation”declaration of martial law“.
The drones and the provocations against Kim
Last October 30, the North Korean Ministry of Defense, which had accused South Korea of having sent at least a couple of drones to North Korea, explained that it had carried out an in-depth investigation into the movements of the aircraft within the country, collecting a total of 238 flight plans and logs. There Korean Central News Agency (Kcna) he had therefore released a map in which the alleged reconstruction of the route of the unmanned aircraft could be observed. It would have taken off on October 8 at 11.25pm from Paekryong Island, a heavily fortified area controlled by Seoul, near the maritime border that separates the two Koreas, violating the North's airspace.
L’South Korean army he had refused to comment on the North's claims. The spokesperson of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lee Sung Joon, had stated that “it wasn't worth answering“. Yet Pyongyang claimed that the drone “captured” had penetrated through its airspace near Jangyon county, in the province of Southern Hwanghae, and the islet of Cho, located off the western coast of the same province.
Arriving in Pyongyang, just a couple of hours after takeoff, he would have “spread motivational political rubbish” in the areas near the buildings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense, as well as near the Sungri station of the local subway. Fueling further tensions between the two Koreas.
