North Korea sends more garbage-filled balloons to the South

North Korea once again sent balloons filled with garbage to South Korea on Saturday June 8 after activists from the south of the peninsula sent propaganda against the government in Pyongyang by the same process.

“North Korea is once again launching [présumés] balloons carrying waste towards the South »South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, advising the public not to touch them and to report the aerostats to authorities.

The South Korean army had announced a few hours earlier that it was on alert for the possible arrival of such balloons, scheduled for Sunday. In two waves last week, North Korea flew hundreds of aerostats to its southern neighbor weighted with bags full of various trash, ranging from cigarette butts to animal excrement.

According to Pyongyang, these “sincere gifts” aimed to respond to the sending of balloons loaded with propaganda to its territory by South Korean activists. On Sunday June 2, Pyongyang announced that it would stop these actions.

But, a few days later, an organization of South Korean activists, “Fighters for a Free North Korea,” said it had sent ten balloons to the north of the peninsula carrying 200,000 leaflets against North Korean number one Kim Jong. One and USB sticks containing South Korean K-pop music.

Suspension of a military detente agreement

Another group, made up of North Korean defectors, said it also sent ten balloons with 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets on Friday, as well as 100 radios and USB sticks containing a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Jang Se-yul, the leader of these defectors, assured Agence France Presse (AFP) on Saturday that his organization would not stop its campaign, “whether Kim Jong Un sends waste-carrying balloons again or not”. However, North Korea has warned that it will respond with “waste paper and waste” in quantities 100 times greater when sending South Korean leaflets.

Last year, South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a 2020 law that criminalized sending propaganda against Pyongyang, saying it limited freedom of expression. Experts say there is now no legal basis for the government to prevent activists from flying balloons to North Korea.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for his part suspended on Tuesday the entirety of a military détente agreement concluded in 2018 with North Korea, after describing it as “despicable provocations” the sending of balloons filled with rubbish by Pyongyang.

Relations between the two Koreas at their lowest point

The move allows South Korea to resume live-fire exercises and restart loudspeaker propaganda campaigns along the border against the North Korean regime, which have always infuriated Pyongyang. South Korean activists have long sent balloons to North Korea to deliver propaganda against Pyongyang, cash, rice, South Korean television series and USB sticks.

Kuensaem, another South Korean activist group, told AFP it threw 500 plastic bottles into the sea on Friday near the border with North Korea. The bottles were filled with rice, money and a USB drive containing a South Korean television series that features a romance between a wealthy South Korean heiress and a North Korean army officer.

These activists have sent this type of material to the North twice a month since 2015. “We were just doing what we have been doing for a long time to help starving North Koreans”the group’s leader, Park Jung-oh, told AFP on Saturday.

Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point in years, with diplomacy long at a standstill and Kim Jong Un intensifying testing and continuing to develop his weapons while the South moves closer to its main security ally, Washington.