South Korea’s military plans to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border into North Korea for the first time in more than a decade, an official said Friday, the latest in a series of punitive measures against North Korea over its recent provocations.
“The anti-North flyers could be scattered from around March when the wind starts to blow northward,” the official said, without elaborating on the scale of the leaflet campaign.
The resumption of the psychological warfare — the first since 2004 — represents South Korea’s determination to put pressure on North Korea for conducting a fourth nuclear test and launching a long-range missile in recent weeks.
North Korea claims its rocket launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit. Still South Korea, the U.S. and other regional powers view it as a cover for testing its ballistic missile technology, which is banned under U.N. resolutions.
South and North Korea agreed to halt propaganda warfare along their heavily fortified border in 2004.
Still, South Korea has resumed its anti-North loudspeaker broadcasts along the border following the North’s nuclear test in January, blaring messages critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the South’s colorful K-pop music.
The planned leaflet campaign comes after North Korea has sent its own propaganda leaflets to the South and started its own loudspeaker broadcasting against the South along the border.
Separately, North Korean defectors in the South and conservative activists have frequently flown anti-Pyongyang leaflets for years to help encourage North Koreans to eventually rise up against the Pyongyang regime.
Missile-shaped big plastic balloons launched by activists usually contained propaganda leaflets, one-dollar bills, radios and DVDs to try to encourage North Koreans to pick up leaflets.
North Korea has bristled at any outside criticism of its leader and has made similar verbal threats against the South over leaflets in recent years, although no actual attack has occurred.
(Yonhap)
