Rome, 9 June 2024 – To the sound of garbage balloonsK-pop and loudspeakers for propaganda lights up again tension between the two Koreas. Pyongyang had set fire to the fuses glast Tuesday and Wednesdaysending approx 260 balloons with garbage and excrement across the border, and disturbing the South Korean GPS, to protest against the anti-North Korea leaflets sent by South Korean activists. On Saturday it then responded with around 600 waste balloons which had crossed the border without problemsreaching almost the entire countryincluding the capital Seoul.
One of the North Korean garbage-filled balloons on the Han River in Seoul
In response, the South Korean National Security Council decided to suspend the inter-Korean military agreement reached up in 2018 to ensure the reduction of tensions with Pyongyang. As a result, Seoul had decided to restore all border military activities limited by the pact.
And after the latest launch of around 330 new balloons from North Korea, Seoul also resorted to old ways like them propaganda broadcasts anti-North Korean spread across the loudspeakers in border areas. But the real thorn in Pyongyang’s side are the activists, especially those of the Fighters for Free North Korea movement, led by the North Korean dissident Park Sang-hak who flooded the North Korean border areas with leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Un, accompanied by two thousand American dollar bills, and with thousands of balloons con USB sticks containing K-pop songs and K-drama series, music and South Korean television series.
