North Korea begins flying balloons across the border to drop trash
North Korea’s Deputy Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said last week that his country would halt the balloon campaign, but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists again sent leaflets.
South Korea’s military said North Korea resumed launching balloons on Saturday in a possible attempt to drop garbage over South Korea, two days after activists in Seoul launched their own balloons to scatter propaganda leaflets over North Korea.
Recently, hostility between the two Koreas has increased since North Korea launched hundreds of balloons carrying manure and garbage towards South Korea in protest of a previous South Korean civilian leaflet distribution campaign. In response, South Korea suspended a de-escalation agreement with North Korea to restore front-line military activities.
Saturday’s balloon launch by North Korea was the third of its kind since May 28. It was not immediately known whether any of the North Korean balloons crossed the rival country’s tense border and landed in South Korean territory.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean balloons carrying trash were heading east but could eventually fly south as wind direction is forecast to change later this year.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised the public to be cautious of falling objects and not to touch balloons lying on the ground but to report them to police or military authorities.
Following two rounds of North Korean balloon activities, South Korean authorities recovered about 1,000 balloons tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, pieces of cloth, spent batteries and waste paper. Some of the balloons burst and scattered across streets, residential areas and schools. No highly hazardous materials were found and no major damage has been reported.
North Korea’s Deputy Defense Minister Kim Kang Il later said his country would stop the balloon campaign, but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists again sent leaflets.
Defying the warning, a South Korean citizens’ group led by North Korean fugitive Park Sang-hak said it launched 10 balloons from the border town on Thursday containing 200,000 anti-North Korea leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, and US$1 notes. Another activist group also launched balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday, South Korean media reported.
South Korean officials described North Korea’s garbage balloon launches and other recent provocations as “absurd, irrational” and vowed strong retaliation. South Korea’s suspension of a 2018 military agreement with North Korea will allow it to resume live-fire military exercises in border areas and anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, actions that are sure to anger North Korea and prompt it to take retaliatory military steps of its own.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to South Korea’s civilian leaflet distribution campaigns and front-line propaganda broadcasts because it restricts access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea with an iron fist since 1948.
Experts say North Korea’s balloon campaign is also aimed at creating divisions in South Korea because of its conservative government’s tough stance toward North Korea.
Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups and front-line residents in South Korea have appealed to the government to urge leaflet-distributing activists to stop releasing balloons to avoid unnecessary confrontation with North Korea. But government officials have not made such appeals in line with last year’s Constitutional Court ruling that struck down a law criminalizing the distribution of anti-North Korea leaflets, calling it a violation of freedom of expression.
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