North Korea Resumes Border Balloon Flights, Suspected Trash Dumping Strategy

On Saturday, North Korea resumed flying balloons, likely in an attempt to drop trash on South Korea, according to South Korea’s military. This occurred two days after Seoul activists had floated their balloons to scatter propaganda leaflets in the North.

Animosities between the two Koreas have recently risen as North Korea launched hundreds of balloons carrying manure and trash toward South Korea, protesting previous South Korean civilian leafletting campaigns. In response, South Korea suspended a tension-easing agreement with North Korea to restore front-line military activities.

Saturday’s balloon launches by North Korea were the third of their kind since May 28. It is not immediately known if any of the North Korean balloons landed on South Korean territory across the rivals’ tense border.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that North Korean balloons, likely carrying trash, were moving eastward. However, they could eventually fly southward due to a forecasted change in wind direction.

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The Joint Chiefs of Staff advised the public to be cautious of falling objects and to report any balloons found on the ground to police or military authorities instead of touching them.

After the North's two rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries, and waste paper. Some balloons had popped and scattered their contents on roads, residential areas, and schools. No hazardous dangerous materials were found, and no major damage was reported.

Later, the North's vice defence minister, Kim Kang Il, stated that his country would stop the balloon campaign but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists sent leaflets again.

🚨 🇰🇵 🇰🇷 NORTH KOREA: OK, WE WILL STOP SENDING TRASH BALLONS... UNDER ONE CONDITION

North Korea will stop sending balloons carrying trash over the border to South Korea but vowed to resume the practice if anti-North Korean leaflets are flown over again from the South.

According… pic.twitter.com/CIJA55RdwS

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 3, 2024

Defying the warning, a South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak stated that it launched 10 balloons from a border town on Thursday. The balloons carried 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and South Korean dramas, and $1 U.S. bills. South Korean media reported that another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

South Korean officials labelled the North Korean trash balloon launches and other recent provocations as 'absurd' and 'irrational' and vowed strong retaliation. The suspension of the 2018 military agreement with North Korea by South Korea would allow it to restart live-fire military drills and anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts at border areas. These actions are certain to anger North Korea and prompt it to take its retaliatory military steps.

North Korea exhibits extreme sensitivity towards South Korean civilian leafletting campaigns and front-line propaganda broadcasts, as it forbids access to foreign news for most of its 26 million people. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un represents the third generation of his family to rule North Korea with an iron fist since 1948.

Experts suggest that North Korea’s balloon campaign is also intended to cause a divide in South Korea over its conservative government's tough approach to North Korea.

Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups, and front-line residents in South Korea have urged the government to encourage leafleting activists to stop flying balloons to avoid unnecessary clashes with North Korea. However, government officials have not made such an appeal in line with last year's constitutional court ruling, which struck down a law criminalizing anti-North Korea leafletting as a violation of free speech.

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