A plastic bag containing several items, including what appeared to be trash that crossed the inter-Korean border on a balloon believed to have been sent by North Korea, is pictured in Seoul, in this photo provided and released by the Ministry of Defense, 2 June 2024 . | Photo credit: Reuters
North Korea said on June 2 it would stop sending waste-filled balloons across the border to the South, saying the “disgusting” missions had been an effective countermeasure against propaganda from anti-regime activists.
Since Tuesday, the North has sent nearly 1,000 balloons carrying bags full of trash containing everything from cigarette butts to bits of cardboard and plastic, Seoul’s military said, warning the public to stay away.
South Korea has called the latest provocation from its nuclear-armed neighbor “irrational” and “low class,” but unlike the spate of recent ballistic missile launches, the waste campaign violates U.N. sanctions against Kim Jong-il’s isolated regime u don’t.
Seoul warned on June 2 that it would take strong countermeasures unless the North called off the balloon bombardment. It said this violates the armistice agreement that ended hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Late on Sunday, the North announced it would end its campaign after it said it distributed “15 tons of waste paper” using thousands of “devices” to deliver it.
“We have given South Koreans the full experience of how disgusting and labor-intensive it is to collect scattered waste paper,” said a statement from the official Korean Central News Agency.
The North said it will now “temporarily suspend” its campaign because it was a “pure countermeasure.”
“However, if the South Koreans resume the distribution of anti-DPRK pamphlets, we will respond by distributing one hundred times the amount of waste paper and filth as we have already warned, in proportion to the quantity and frequency detected,” it said report. , using the acronym for the country’s official name.
Activists in the South have also floated their own balloons over the border, filled with leaflets and sometimes cash, rice or USB drives full of K-dramas.
Earlier this week, Pyongyang described its “sincere gifts” as retaliation for the propaganda-laden balloons sent to North Korea.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the balloons had landed in northern provinces, including the capital Seoul and the neighboring Gyeonggi area, home to nearly half of South Korea’s population.
The latest batch of balloons was full of “waste such as cigarette butts, waste paper, bits of cloth and plastic,” the JCS said, adding that military officials and police were collecting them.
“Our military conducts surveillance and reconnaissance from the balloon launch points, tracks them through aerial reconnaissance and collects the fallen debris, prioritizing public safety,” the report said.
Balloon Wars
South Korea’s National Security Council met on Sunday and a presidential official said Seoul would not rule out responding to the balloons by resuming propaganda campaigns using loudspeakers along the border with North Korea.
In the past, South Korea has broadcast anti-Kim propaganda to the North, angering Pyongyang.
“If Seoul chooses to resume anti-North broadcasts over loudspeakers along the border, which Pyongyang hates as much as anti-Kim balloons, it could lead to limited armed conflict along border areas, such as in the West Sea,” said Cheong Seong. chang, director of Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute.
In 2018, during a period of improved inter-Korean relations, both leaders agreed to “completely cease all hostile acts against each other in all areas”, including the distribution of leaflets.
South Korea’s parliament passed a law in 2020 criminalizing sending leaflets to the North, but the law – which failed to deter activists – was rejected last year as a violation of freedom of expression.
Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong — one of Pyongyang’s top spokespeople — mocked South Korea for complaining about the balloons this week, saying North Koreans were simply exercising their freedom of speech.
The two Koreas’ propaganda offensives have sometimes escalated into bigger tit-for-tats.
In June 2020, Pyongyang unilaterally severed all official military and political communications links with the South and blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border.
The waste campaign comes after analysts warned that Kim tests weapons before sending them to Russia for use in Ukraine. South Korea’s defense minister said this weekend that Pyongyang has now shipped about 10,000 containers of weapons to Moscow in exchange for Russian satellite knowledge. How.
