Tag: balloons

This tit-for-tat is better than the two Koreas shooting at each other:

South Korea’s military blared K-pop songs and news through its loudspeakers across the border with North Korea on Sunday as it stepped up its psychological campaign in response to North Korea’s repeated launches of trash balloons.

The move came five days after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned of “gruesome and dear” consequences over continued leaflet campaigns seen by North Korea as psychological warfare.

North Korea has sent more than 2,000 trash-filled balloons into the South over nine occasions in a tit-for-tat retaliation for anti-Pyongyang leaflets that North Korean defectors in South Korea send to North Korea using balloons.

“As we have warned numerous times, we will conduct loudspeaker broadcasts in full-scale at all fronts starting from 1 p.m.,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a notice to reporters.

The propaganda broadcasts typically comprise news, a message urging North Korean soldiers near the border to escape to South Korea as well as K-pop songs, including global K-pop sensation BTS’ megahit singles “Dynamite” and “Butter.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the Korean left’s latest attempt to silence the activists that fly anti-regime balloons into North Korea:

Materials believed to be anti-Pyongyang leaflets from South Korea are set on fire after being discovered in North Korea, in this photo released by the North’s Korean Central News Agency on July 14, 2024.

The unification ministry on Wednesday struck a cautious note about opposition lawmakers’ legislative attempt to ban Seoul activists’ sending of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, citing the right of freedom of expression.

In September, the Constitutional Court ruled that a clause banning leaflet launches in the law on the development of inter-Korean relations is unconstitutional, saying it excessively restricts the right to freedom of expression.

The decision paved the way for North Korean defectors and activists to resume their leaflet campaigns toward North Korea. In retaliation, the North has sent more than 2,000 trash-filled balloons into the South since late May.

Several lawmakers from the main opposition Democratic Party have proposed revisions to the law to restrict such leaflet launches while taking into account the intent of the court’s ruling.

“When it comes to a revision to the law, there is a need for a cautious approach, given that the court’s ruling underscores freedom of expression as a constitutional value that is the basis of democracy,” the ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs said in a report to the National Assembly.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If North Korea’s trash balloons are considered soft terrorism, than is the South Korean activists who send balloons into North Korea also soft terrorists?:

North Korea’s obnoxious sending of trash-filled balloons to South Korea is a “form of soft terrorism,” a U.S. think tank report said Tuesday, stressing it should not be taken lightly though it reflects the recalcitrant regime’s “weakness” and “insecurity.”

Victor Cha, senior vice president for Asia and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Andy Lim, an associate fellow with the CSIS Korea Chair, released the report that analyzed Pyongyang’s campaign involving garbage-filled balloons in a question-and-answer format.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This should give everyone further indications on how healthy the people in North Korea are:

Parasites have been detected in some of the trash-filled balloons sent by North Korea to South Korea, but no harmful substances were found, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.

In recent weeks, North Korea has sent more than 1,000 trash-carrying balloons toward the South on multiple occasions in retaliation for South Korean activists’ leaflet campaigns condemning the North Korean regime.

“Numerous parasites, such as roundworms, whipworms and threadworms, were found in the soil contained in the trash,” the ministry said in a press release, adding that the parasites are believed to originate from human excrement.

The findings are based on an examination of 70 balloons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The trash attacks into South Korea are continuing:

North Korea on Monday sent balloons presumed to be carrying trash toward South Korea again, Seoul’s military said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the balloons appeared to be travelling in a southeastern direction from the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul.

It advised the public to not touch fallen balloons and report them to military or police authorities.

On Friday, Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of the North’s leader, hinted about launching more balloons after North Korean defectors in the South sent balloons with anti-Pyongyang leaflets toward the North earlier in the week.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The balloon wars between North and South Korea continue:

A North Korean defectors’ group said Thursday it has sent about 10 large plastic balloons carrying propaganda leaflets against the North Korean regime across the border, raising concerns Pyongyang could resume sending trash-filled balloons. 

Filled with 200,000 flyers criticizing the regime, dollar bills and USB sticks loaded with K-pop and trot music, the balloons were floated from Pocheon, north of Seoul, early Thursday, according to Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK).

A military source confirmed that some of these balloons have flown into the North but said no signs of retaliatory action were detected yet from the North Korean side, including any launch of ballistic missiles or release of balloons loaded with trash.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if this leads to more trash attacks from North Korea in response.

It is pretty amazing how far some of the trash filled balloons from North Korea were able to fly into South Korea, to include Osan Airbase:

The U.S. military confirmed Monday that debris found near an on-base school the previous day had been carried by balloon from North Korea. The inflatable came down Sunday on Osan Air Base, near Osan Elementary School, according to principal Allyse Struhs’ email to parents and guardians that evening.

U.S. Forces Korea spokesman David Kim said in a statement Monday that at least one North Korean balloon was found at Osan, home of 7th Air Force and the 51st Fighter Wing about 30 miles south of Seoul. “The debris primarily consisted of basketball-size black plastic bags filled with trash and cloth, which were deemed safe with no threat to the public after investigation,” he wrote.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if the Yoon administration stops Park Hang-sak and his group, Fighters for a Free North Korea, from sending propaganda balloons to North Korea in order to put and end to the North Korean trash attacks:

A cleaner takes away bags of trash carried airborne by North Korean balloons in a parking lot outside a shopping mall in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, on June 2, 2024. (Yonhap)

North Korea said Sunday it will temporarily stop sending trash-filled balloons across the border to South Korea, though it also threatened to resume such operations if Seoul sends more anti-Pyongyang leaflets.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang-il claimed Pyongyang had sent 3,500 balloons, carrying 15 tons worth of debris, toward South Korea between Tuesday night and Sunday morning.

Kim offered to temporarily halt that activity because it was solely in response to anti-communist leaflets flown up north by South Korean activists.

Kim added that should South Korea send such leaflets again, North Korea will retaliate with balloons carrying “garbage amounting to 100 times” the quantity of those propaganda pieces of paper.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.