North Korea Raises a Stink in North-South Balloon War

Trash War Ends on Farcical Note

By: Shim Jae Hoon

Photo from AFP

Pyongyang’s launch of as many as 1,000 balloons stuffed with household trash, industrial waste, and what appeared to be human fecal material, which crossed the border in what might inelegantly be called a shit storm since May 28, appears to be an indication that South Korean human rights activists are taking a toll by placing tiny USB sticks inside balloons and dropping them over the North – especially ones ruffling Kim Jong Un’s own sore spots by pointing out that the dictator’s mother actually came from a South Korean expatriate family in Japan, a country that all North Koreans are taught to hate.

The USBs also deliver news about the outside world and life in South Korea, especially TV programs filled with K-pop dramas. As an added incentive, the balloons sometimes contain US$1 notes for emergency food purchases. In recent years, conservative human rights organizations, even North Korean refugee groups who have resettled in the South, are resorting to the balloon war trying to shake up the Kim Jong Un regime. So many people in the North have picked up these USB sticks that the regime has implemented severe punishment including death sentences for those caught in possession.

A North Korean spokesman proudly announced the trash delivery in what Kim Yo Jong, Kin Jong Un’s powerful sister, scornfully described as “gifts from North Korean people exercising their freedom of expression to democracy-loving people of the South.” She was sneering at the Seoul government’s statements that it has no means to stop the activists from sending their own balloons. But trashing was not the only behavior attributed to the Kim siblings. The regime also used electronic waves to scramble South Korea’s GPS (Global Positioning System) signals on which many South Korean commercial liners depend for safe navigation. It was intended to demonstrate the extent to which the North was capable of doing to harm South Korean shipping liners.

Seoul was so upset that the military is restarting border area combat exercises plus air/surface training, an indication that the North gambled and lost. Meeting in emergency cabinet session, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared such provocations will not go unanswered, announcing that the 2018 military accords that prohibit dangerous activities along the demarcation line would be suspended for the time being. In Seoul, public anger reached a new high, prompting conservative voters to call for ending the 2018 military accord that restricts troops along the Demilitarized Zone borderlines to stay away from using lethal weapons or planting mines.

Civilian aircraft in the south were ordered moved to safer positions as some of the trash began descending on international airports. Security officials in particular were alarmed over the possibility the trash might have been laced with biological or chemical agents, which North Korea was notorious for using during the Korean War and also recently in murdering Kim Jong Un’s stepbrother Kim Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur airport some years ago. Following initial alarm, Seoul officials said they were satisfied that no poison had been discovered although they are not letting their guard down.

Although Kim Yo Jong claimed that her action was a response to South Korea’s failure to rein in human rights activists – and North Korean refugees who have escaped and resettled in the South — insist she was wrong in trying to have the government curb their action in a free society. In fact, quite a few North Korean refugees have fought the Seoul government’s efforts to curb their activities through the courts. Both South Korean campaigners and North Korean refugee activists here don’t conceal their true ambition of freeing the North’s populace from Kim’s dictatorship. They are also tired of the seemingly eternal condition of territorial division on the peninsula.

North Korea actually started the balloon offensive back in the 1960s as part of psychological warfare agitating for the withdrawal of US troops from the South. Balloons launched contained handbills and leaflets urging South Koreans to rise up and demand the removal of the troops, and also to overturn their elected government in a push for a communist revolution. But the tables have now turned. With more and more North Koreans being exposed to popular entertainment programs of the South and with young men and women becoming accustomed to using South Korean slang, dress, and mannerisms, the North Korean regime has begun cracking down on such deviants.

Although it isn’t clear how strong are the undercurrents for change in North Korea, it is useful to realize how long the state of tension has lasted. On both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, sentiment in favor of reunification runs high. Many North Koreans openly attribute their suffering – political and economic – to the state of division, so reunification is considered salvation. The North’s invasion, which started in June of 1950, marks its 74th anniversary this month. It is, in all certainty, the longest-running conflict in modern history. Even the armistice accord signed three years later in July 1953 hasn’t actually brought real peace. By all definitions, it qualifies as the longest-running ceasefire, but also one of the most precarious ones, in the history of armistices.

Even though the full-scale shooting war has long stopped, the peace prevailing over the 155-mile demarcation line cutting across the peninsula sometimes erupts with renewed artillery fire. Semi-war exists as North Korea ceaselessly delivers never-ending rocket shelling and missile tests, even an undersea submarine torpedo attack such as the one which sank a South Korean naval frigate, killing 46 navy men in 2010.

But the government has been sufficiently aroused to take stronger countermeasures. In his Memorial Day speech on June 6, President Yoon denounced the North for its “craven behavior” in scattering trash over South Korea. “North Korea will meet with our overwhelming and resolute countermeasures,” he declared, adding that South Korea “will not sit by with folded arms.”

Yoon’s strongly worded statement clashes with the view of the dovish opposition Democratic Party, which has called for negotiation with the North. Lessening tension with the North has turned even more problematic as Yoon has no intention of seeking cooperation from Democratic Party leader Lee Jae Myong, whose group controls a majority in the unicameral National Assembly. As Yoon clashes more with Lee in the coming months over how to punish Kim’s provocation, South Korea’s internal political situation is expected to turn tense and chaotic.

The Yoon government has already begun a series of military exercises along the Demilitarized Zone with US allies troops, in a demonstration of tough determination on the part of Seoul and Washington to deal firmly with North Korea. With full public support, the Yoon government is restoring loudspeakers along the border to resume propaganda broadcast that the regime fears most.

A huge number of high-powered loudspeakers facing the Northern side of the border will now go into action, beaming news about the outside world, especially about South Korea that has long lured North Korean troops. These had been removed four years ago as a gesture of reconciliation with the North. It had been a thorn on the side of Kim Jong Un as South Korean loudspeakers broadcasting outside news and entertainment programs have often resulted in lonely North Korean guards braving the heavily mined demarcation line to escape to the South.

The decision to resume the loudspeaker campaign has had an immediate impact on the North Korean leadership. No sooner had the Cabinet decision been made and announced to the public, the North Korean broadcast announced the trash balloons would stop.