Defectors to halt balloon launches ahead of election

Activists launch balloons carrying antiregime leaflets into North Korea in this photo taken October 29 near the North Korean border. Two groups say they will halt further launches until after the Dec. 19 presidential election to prevent the North from using the event to interfere in local politics. / Yonhap

By Kim Young-jin

Activists who send information into North Korea attached to balloons said Thursday they will temporarily cease the action, so as not to give Pyongyang a reason to interfere in the Dec. 19 election.

The groups, led by North Korean defectors, postponed their scheduled launches in response to requests from the ruling Saenuri Party, Park Sang-hak, one of the defectors, said.

"We will not openly carry out the distribution of anti-North leaflets," before the polls, Kim Seong-min, of the group Fighters for Free North Korea, said.

North Korea has historically ramped up tensions in the run-up to the polls in a bid to sway the public toward candidates who support engagement.

Park said the request from the conservative party came out of concern that the launches "can provide a pretext for North Korea to intervene in the local presidential election."

He added that winds at this time of year are not favorable anyway, and kept the door open for future launches.

The groups “wanted to scatter leaflets to mark the second anniversary of the (North's) shelling of Yeonpyeong Island (on Nov, 23) but the wind is not favorable," he said. If conditions permit, they may go forward with the launch unannounced.

Last month, Seoul blocked the activists from sending pamphlets into the North after Pyongyang threatened to fire on the areas the balloons came from in a “merciless military strike”.

At the time, dozens of activists had planned to send 200,000 pamphlets from the Imjingak Park near Paju. But soldiers and police blocked people from entering the park in response to the threats. The Lee Myung-bak administration generally allows the sending of propaganda balloons. The activists later flew some of the flyers over from a nearby site, undetected.

The North has in recent months has engaged in numerous intrusions with fishing boats across the tense maritime border that have been seen as an attempt to test the South’s nerves and cause division here.

Past cases of the North’s provocations impacting elections here include the bombing of a Korean Air plane in 1987 and military maneuvers by the North at the border village of Panmunjom in 1996.