SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans were on high alert Friday for probable additional launches by North Korea of balloons carrying garbage into the South, a day after Seoul activists flew their balloons to distribute political messages in the North.
If North Korea resumes its trash balloon launches, South Korea is likely to reply, potentially with anti-North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts or live-fire exercises along their strongly guarded border. North Korea will most likely reply with its measures, heightening tensions between the adversaries.
Here’s a look at the escalating tensions between the Koreas over the balloon launches:
WHY ARE THE KOREAS FIGHTING OVER BALLOONS?
Last week, South Korean officials discovered over 1,000 North Korean-flown balloons containing manure, cigarette butts, textile scraps, trash batteries, and vinyl in various locations in South Korea. No highly harmful materials were discovered, but some South Koreans are concerned that North Korea may launch balloons with biological or other hazardous chemicals in the future.
South Korean officials condemned the North Korean balloon campaign and other recent provocations as “absurd, irrational” and promised an “unbearable” response. They halted a 2018 military deal to reduce frontline military tensions with North Korea.
Will North Korea Fly Trash Balloons Into South Korea Again? A Look At Rising Tensions Between Them
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, claimed the balloons were in retaliation to South Korean civilian attempts to fly propaganda leaflets into North Korea. Analysts believe the North’s conduct was also intended to stoke tensions in South Korea over its conservative government’s tough stance on North Korea.
For years, South Korean civic activists have used helium-filled balloons to deliver anti-North Korean leaflets and USB drives containing South Korean dramas and international news to the North, where most of the 26 million people are denied access to foreign news. The launches enrage North Korea, which has previously fired at the balloons and destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in the North as a reprisal.
ARE TENSIONS OVER BALLOONS LIKELY TO INCREASE?
Kim Kang Il, the North’s vice defense minister, said Sunday that the government would suspend the balloon campaign but vowed to resume it if South Korean activists sent pamphlets again.
A South Korean civilian group under the leadership of North Korean defector Park Sang-hak claimed that on Thursday, it launched ten balloons from a border town carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, and one-dollar US bills.
“We delivered the truth, love, medications, one-dollar notes, and songs. But a barbarous Kim Jong Un delivered us trash and waste, and he hasn’t apologized for it,” Park remarked.
North Korea has not immediately responded. Many analysts believe it will resume flying trash-carrying balloons when the weather is favorable. North Korea’s state media has previously described Park as “human scum without an equal in the world.”
Will North Korea Fly Trash Balloons Into South Korea Again? A Look At Rising Tensions Between Them
Following the suspension of the 2018 tension-easing deal, South Korea is prepared to respond to a fresh North Korean balloon campaign by beginning frontline live-fire drills or loudspeaker broadcasts of anti-North Korean propaganda and foreign news. Such actions are likely to aggravate North Korea.
Is Cold War-style Psychological Warfare Returning?
Flying balloons carrying propaganda leaflets into each other’s land was one of the most common psychological campaigns used by the two Koreas during the 1950-53 Korean War and at the height of the Cold War.
However, the North Korean balloons flown into South Korea in recent days contained simply garbage, not political literature. It marked the North’s first balloon campaign in seven years.
In a Memorial Day speech Thursday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stated, “North Korea carried out a despicable provocation that would make any normal country ashamed of itself.” Matthew Miller, a US State Department spokesperson, described the trash-carrying balloons as “disgusting” and “childish.”
During the Cold War, rival Koreas employed frontline loudspeaker broadcasts and enormous frontline billboards and propaganda radio broadcasts to conduct psychological warfare.
Will North Korea Fly Trash Balloons Into South Korea Again? A Look At Rising Tensions Between Them
In recent years, the two Koreas had agreed to suspend such activities, but they have occasionally resumed when tensions escalated. South Korean officials claim they have no legal basis for prohibiting private persons from flying balloons to North Korea after the country’s constitutional court overturned a rule that criminalized such leafleting as a breach of free expression.
Many South Koreans believe that resuming loudspeaker broadcasts would severely sting North Korea’s leadership, as they fear that the broadcasts will demoralize frontline troops and inhabitants of the tightly controlled society, gradually weakening Kim Jong Un.
When South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts after an 11-year hiatus, North Korea launched artillery rounds across the border, leading South Korea to respond. There were no casualties reported.
SOURCE – (AP)
