Anti-NK leaflets could disrupt high-level talks

By Yi Whan-woo

Leaflets critical of the regime in Pyongyang, borne by balloons across the demilitarized zone, are disrupting efforts by the two Koreas to agree to hold a second round of high-level talks by the end of this month.

North Korea condemned South Korea, Sunday, for failing to prevent a group of activists who sent a new set of leaflets critical of the regime across the inter-Korean border Saturday evening.

The North also claimed that the Seoul government prevented a group of liberals from protesting against the actions of the conservative group, adding further weight to debate and dispute in society here over the propaganda campaign.

“Puppet police officers (of the Seoul government) obstructed the liberal activists in their struggle against the conservatives’ impulsive acts to fly the leaflets,” stated Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency on Sunday.

The comment came after the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, warned early on Saturday that if the anti-Pyongyang airborne leaflet campaign continues, it will result in the “unrecoverable destruction of inter-Korean relations.”

Groups such as Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK) have continued to send the leaflets that have infuriated the government of the reclusive state for years.

The FFNK is comprised of citizens who escaped from North Korea. The leaflets are intended to help citizens in the North who are brainwashed by ideology to support the regime in Pyongyang.

The leaflets contain messages denouncing the Kim dynasty, now a three-generation lineage of North Korean leadership comprised of “Eternal President,” Kim Il-sung; “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong-il; and Kim Jong-un, also known as “Supreme Leader” and the “Great Successor,” following the death of his father.

The two Koreas agreed to hold another round of inter-Korean talks by the end of this month at the earliest following a surprise visit by Kim Jong-un’s three confidants ― Hwang Pyong-so, Choe Ryong-hae and Kim Yang-gon ― to Incheon on Oct. 4

The trio met South Korea’s National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae at that time.

However since then, Pyongyang has openly threatened to cancel the talks if the leaflet campaigns continued.

On Saturday evening, the FFNK carried out its campaign in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, following their failed attempt to do so earlier on the day in Paju, also a provincial city.

The activists faced a backlash from opposing civic groups as well as Paju citizens because they planned to fly about a dozen balloons carrying up to 10,000 leaflets at the inter-Korean border park of Imjingak.

This plan failed because some 200 Paju local residents and activists staged a sit-in and blocked the entrance of the park with tractors. Some activists seized and damaged leaflets and balloons.

Opponents condemned the release of the balloons as life-threatening.

On Oct. 7, the two Koreas exchanged machinegun fire after North Korea shot at balloons carrying leaflets released by the FFNK in Paju.

Police said they arrested an activist Saturday for “interfering with their duty.”