Tag: balloons

This is a lesson from dictatorship 101, you have to control the flow of information to the people to maintain regime control; the balloon flights challenge this control:

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist and founder of the advocacy group Fighters for a Free North Korea, holds up propaganda material condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for developing nuclear weapons and missiles without feeding the country’s hungry residents in this April 2021 photo. Courtesy of Fighters for a Free North Korea

Pyongyang has belatedly reacted furiously to South Korean Constitutional Court’s decision in September to strike down the ban on sending propaganda leaflets over the border into North Korea.

In a statement released in November, North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA) said the court’s decision signals a de facto war against the North as information warfare is part of an operation preceding a ground war.

Calling North Korean defectors who flew the leaflets across the border “garbage,” the KCNA said that North Korea’s firing of anti-aircraft rounds across the border in 2014 and its destroying of the inter-Korean liason office used for talks between the two countries in 2020 are two chilling reminders of what South Korea could face. 

In 2014, North Korea used anti-aircraft guns to shoot down balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by South Korean activists near the border town of Yeoncheon. 

North Korea’s furious reaction to the court’s lifting of the ban on sending propaganda leaflets into the North reflects the regime fears its people being exposed to outside information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like if a liberal administration takes over again they will have a harder time trying to shutdown Fighters for a Free North Korea with this court ruling:

A South Korean court on Tuesday found a law banning private entities from sending leaflets or other items by balloon into North Korea unconstitutional.

In a 7-2 decision, the Constitutional Court found the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act, promulgated in 2020 during the liberal Moon Jae-in administration, unconstitutional. Scores of North Korean human rights groups filed the complaint with the Constitutional Court immediately after the law came into effect.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Well if the U.S. is supposedly flying these balloons over China why didn’t they shoot them down and show the world the evidence?:

China on Monday said more than 10 U.S. high-altitude balloons have flown in its airspace during the past year without its permission, following Washington’s accusation that Beijing operates a fleet of surveillance balloons around the world. The United States denied that it operates any surveillance balloons over China.

The Chinese allegation came after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon that had crossed from Alaska to South Carolina, sparking a new crisis in bilateral relations that have spiraled to their lowest level in decades.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave no details about the alleged U.S. balloons, how they had been dealt with or whether they had government or military links.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but this sounds like more Chinese lies that is intended for their domestic audience that can’t get any other information other than from the government.

It looks like the Kim regime wants to play balloon games just like the Xi regime in China:

A suspected North Korean weather balloon entered South Korea’s airspace earlier this week, prompting Seoul’s military to strengthen its monitoring activities, according to a Seoul official Monday.

The balloon measuring around 2 meters in length was spotted flying over the South Korean territory on Sunday afternoon and appears to have left the South hours later, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The military did not take specific air defense steps, such as sending fighter jets to the scene, as it deemed the balloon as having no intention for spying activities. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The Yoon administration has decided to crackdown on Park Sang-hak and his Fighters for a Free North Korea:

 South Korean activists say they clashed with police while launching balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda materials across the North Korean border, ignoring their government’s plea to stop such activities since the North has threatened to respond with “deadly” retaliation.

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, said he his group had launched about eight balloons from an area in the South Korean border town of Paju Saturday night when police officers arrived at the scene and prevented them from sending their 12 remaining balloons. Park said police confiscated some of their materials and detained him and three other members of his group over mild scuffles with officers before releasing them after questioning.

Officials at the Paju police and the northern Gyeonggi provincial police agencies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

The balloons flown toward North Korea carried masks, Tylenol and Vitamin C tablets along with propaganda materials, including booklets praising South Korea’s economic wealth and democratic society and hundreds of USB sticks containing videos of U.S. Congress members denouncing the North’s human rights record, Park said.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link.

Park Sang-hak is taking advantage of the change in government in South Korea to ramp up his balloon launch activities again after being largely silenced by the previous Moon administration:

An activist said he has again flown huge balloons carrying COVID-19 relief items and an anti-North Korea placard across the tense inter-Korean border, despite the North’s recent warning of a deadly attack over his activities.

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, said the 20 balloons launched from a South Korean border town on Sunday carried 20,000 masks and tens of thousands of Tylenol and Vitamin C tablets.

He said one of the balloons carried a placard with a message that reads “Let’s eradicate Kim Jong Un and (his sister) Kim Yo Jong,” along with their photos. He said no other propaganda statements were carried by the balloons.

For years, Park has floated helium-filled balloons with numerous, small anti-Pyongyang leaflets with harsh criticism of the Kim family’s authoritarian rule in North Korea. But he’s recently changed his cargo to masks and other health products amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I think the ROK needs to pay attention to this threat because the balloon activists are giving the Kim regime the rationale to launch a provocation:

A North Korean propaganda outlet on Saturday lashed out at defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets, warning of a reaction that could go beyond the explosion of an inter-Korean liaison office two years ago. 

The Tongil Shinbo, a weekly North Korean publication, also criticized the Yoon Suk-yeol government for speaking out about human rights in North Korea and seeking the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. 

There could be an action that would exceed the blowup of the liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on June 16, 2020, if North Korean defector groups continue to send goods and leaflets to the North, the newspaper said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I find the anger over the balloon activists ironic considering for decades North Korea used to be the ones sending propaganda balloons into South Korea. I am old enough to remember when they used to do this and when the leaflets were found we had to turn them in and could not keep them.