section_path: Background/Attempts to provoke North Korean crisis to justify martial law
section_name: Attempts to provoke North Korean crisis to justify martial law
paragraph_text: Attempts to provoke North Korean crisis to justify martial law
  
  In May 2024, North Korea began sending balloons loaded with trash into South Korea in response to balloons launched into the north by South Korean organization Fighters for a Free North Korea. In October, North Korea accused the South Korean military of flying propaganda leaflet-scattering drones over Pyongyang, which the South Korean military said they were unable to confirm.
  
  In December, citing a source from within the military, Park Beom-kye, a member of the National Defense Committee of the National Assembly, claimed Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun orchestrated the drone incident to stoke tension with the North, and that the DCC took a hands-on role in the incident. Lee Ki-heon of the Intelligence Committee said he had confirmed a report that Kim Yong-hyun instructed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Kim Myung-soo to "fire warning shots and then strike the origin of sewage balloons flying from the North", though a spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff denied this. Lee said Yoon and Defense Minister Kim were trying to provoke a "local war" in order to justify martial law. Admiral Kim refused the order and was verbally abused by Defense Minister Kim. Lee suspected this led Defense Minister Kim to select Army Chief of Staff Park An-su for martial law commander instead, as Admiral Kim would have been the default choice.
  
  On 1 December, two days before martial law was declared, colonel-level commanders were called to be on guard for an imminent provocation by North Korea, with DCC Commander Yeo In-hyung giving orders to prepare for a "serious North Korean filth balloon situation".
  
  During police investigations into the martial law declaration, a memo was recovered from a notebook owned by former Army Maj. Gen. Roh Sang-won, former chief of the Defense Intelligence Command, in his residence in Ansan. The memo reportedly contained details of a plot to provoke North Korea by generating an incident along the Northern Limit Line. On 14 February 2025, the Hankyoreh reported that the notebook included, in addition to the North Korean plans, plans for detaining about 500 public figures and abolishing term limits to allow Yoon to potentially serve 3 terms.