North Korea has said it will stop sending balloons full of garbage and manure to South Korea, but only if Seoul stops its activists from spreading anti-Pyongyang leaflets. “Ours is a countermeasure,” specified the KCNA, the North Korean state agency. The deputy defense minister, Kim Kang-il, announced that between Tuesday 28 May and Sunday 2 June alone, Pyongyang sent a total of 3,500 balloons across the border, carrying 15 tons of rubbish and manure towards South Korea. After the last launch this morning, Kim Jong-un offered to interrupt this activity, which in any case – specifies the regime agency – was nothing more than a response “to the anti-communist leaflets flown towards the North by South Korean activists”. Should Seoul “send such leaflets again”, warns the North Korean deputy defense minister, Pyongyang will react with a real retaliation: that is, balloons that will carry “garbage equal to 100 times” the quantity of leaflets arriving from the South.
The launch of balloons
The first launch of balloons full of rubbish and excrement took place on the night between Tuesday 28th and Wednesday 29th May. Since then, North Korea has launched a total of 3,500 dirt-filled balloons, including 600 this morning. Inside the balloons, the Seoul armed forces found a bit of everything: cigarette butts, pieces of plastic, waste paper and excrement (including human). The balloons arrived everywhere, even in the South Korean capital. The South Korean army has made it known that it is working with the police, local governments, the Ministry of Security and the UN Command to minimize inconvenience to the population. In recent days, a hypothesis had circulated according to which Seoul was thinking of organizing a psychological war against the North, complete with broadcasts via loudspeakers along the border and sending “counter-propaganda” leaflets to Kim Jong-un’s state.
On the cover: South Korean soldiers collect garbage sent from North Korea, June 2, 2024 (EPA/Yonhap)
