S. Korea blares border propaganda broadcasts in full scale for 2nd day
South Korean soldiers inspect loudspeakers before installing them near the inter-Korean border, in this photo provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), June 9. Yonhap
South Korea conducted anti-Pyongyang broadcasts through its border loudspeakers in full-scale for the second day Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, amid tensions over the North's launches of trash-carrying balloons into the South.
The military began the daily anti-Pyongyang broadcasts at 6 a.m. for a 16-hour run after turning them on all the fronts Sunday in response to the North's repeated launches of the balloons, according to the JCS.
The latest broadcast is said to have included news of multiple North Korean troops killed in recent mine explosions while installing them within the North's side of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas and a defection of a North Korean diplomat to South Korea.
Debris from a trash balloon floated over from North Korea is scattered on a street in Gangbuk District, Seoul, in this picture provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Sunday. Yonhap
North Korea has launched the trash balloons toward the South over nine occasions since late May, including some 500 such balloons Sunday, in a tit-for-tat retaliation for anti-Pyongyang leaflets that North Korean defectors in the South send to the North using balloons.
Of the North's latest launched balloons, some 240 of them landed in South Korea, largely carrying pieces of paper, according to the JCS.
South Korea restarted anti-Pyongyang broadcasts on June 9 for the first time in six years due to the North's balloon campaign but had switched them off the next day in an apparent bid to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.
It resumed partially operating the loudspeakers daily since Thursday before expanding them in full scale Sunday.
The military is considering measures to expand the broadcasts if the North continues to launch the balloons or undertake other forms of provocative acts against the South.
"We operated fixed speakers at all sections yesterday and will also turn on mobile speakers going forward," JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun told a briefing. "As of 1 p.m. Sunday, we had lifted all restrictions on propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts."
The military is believed to deploy 24 fixed loudspeakers, audible up to 24 kilometers during nighttime, and 16 portable speakers, with a greater range, in front-line areas.
While the JCS spokesperson did not elaborate on the details of the broadcasts, Lee said they comprise "contents that are beneficial to North Korean residents and soldiers as well as those promoting our system."
North Korea has bristled against the loudspeaker campaign, as well as anti-Pyongyang leaflets, on fears that an influx of outside information could pose a threat to the Kim Jong-un regime.
In 2014, the two Koreas exchanged machine gun fire across the border after the North apparently tried to shoot down balloons carrying propaganda leaflets critical of North Korea.
North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border town of Kaesong in 2020 in anger over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent via balloons by North Korean defectors in Seoul. (Yonhap)