The two Koreas continue to engage in their balloon-launching campaigns, a tactic that was part of the psychological warfare used during the Cold War and that, since the end of May, seems to have become the new normal on the peninsula. In the last 24 hours, around 500 balloons carrying waste from North Korea have entered South Korean airspace, according to a statement from the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday. This is the tenth such launch that Pyongyang has carried out in the last two months, in response to the leaflets against the Kim Jong-un regime that groups of North Korean defectors and South Korean activists have sent to the most hermetic country on the planet (via their own plastic balloons) and to the anti-dictatorship messages that the South Korean army has been broadcasting over loudspeakers since last week to dissuade the North Korean authorities from continuing their crusade.
Pyongyang has already dropped more than 2,000 huge white balloons carrying waste – used paper, pieces of plastic, cigarette butts and even manure – over its neighbouring enemy since late May. The army’s chemical response teams, which analyse the contents, say that no dangerous objects have been found so far.
However, for the first time, one of them has hit the presidential residence of South Korea, located in the center of Seoul and protected by dozens of soldiers, and a no-fly zone. The presidential security service announced on Wednesday that, “after investigating its contents, the results confirmed that they did not carry any dangerous or contaminated objects.” It has not been revealed whether South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was there at the time of the impact. In June, one of these devices landed near the National Museum (close to the official residence of the South Korean president), but, until yesterday, none had landed near the presidential office.
According to the South Korean military, some balloons are equipped with timers that “make them pop and scatter garbage after a certain period of time,” Lee Sung-jun, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday. Earlier this week, military officials had already said that the latest balloons — also sent out on Thursday and Sunday last week — had used more timers than those sent out a month ago. It is not clear whether the one that landed at the presidential complex had such a timer.
Yang Uk, a military analyst at the Asan Institute for Political Studies, was quoted by the digital media NK Newsbelieves that although the balloons do not pose a military threat – that is why the army did not intercept them – the fact that one of them appeared inside the presidential complex should not be dismissed. If tensions escalate, the devices could be carrying explosives, said this expert, who also stressed the importance of the military being prepared for such a scenario. However, other analysts are skeptical that Pyongyang could use them to specifically attack the Presidential Office.
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The South Korean military said Thursday that most of the 480 balloons detected in the past two days in South Korea had reached Seoul and the northwestern province of Gyeonggi, the most populous in the country, which surrounds the capital city. In recent weeks, these devices have repeatedly affected normal traffic at the country’s main airport and the fifth busiest in the world, Incheon. This morning, the impact of one on the roof of a residential building in Gyeonggi caused a fire, which was quickly controlled by firefighters.
Seoul responded to last week’s launches by broadcasting anti-Pyongyang messages over loudspeakers on the border. These were the first such broadcasts since June 9, when they were resumed for the first time in six years. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported today that the military “has stepped up and is carrying out propaganda broadcasts on all fronts.” These include K-pop songs, news about South Korean companies and criticism of North Korea’s missile program and the dictatorship.
Pyongyang considers the arrival of “dirty leaflets loaded with South Korean trash,” as the authorities define them, a provocation that could threaten its leadership, since official access to foreign news is prohibited for most of its 26 million inhabitants. For years, groups of activists based in South Korea have been sending balloons loaded with propaganda and political information, as well as USBs with South Korean music and series. Last week, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean supreme leader, warned of the “horrible” consequences that South Koreans would face if they continued with these campaigns.
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