South restarts loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation

Hours after the South resumed loudspeaker broadcasts on Sunday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned that the South had created a “prelude to a very dangerous situation”.

She said South Korea would see an unspecified “new response” from the North if it continued the broadcasts and failed to stop civilian activists from distributing anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border.

“I sternly warn Seoul to immediately assess its dangerous activities that would further provoke a crisis of confrontation,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.

It came shortly after the South Korean military said it detected North Korea launching what appeared to be more balloons carrying garbage on Sunday evening.

The military did not immediately confirm the number of the suspected balloons or whether any had already landed in the South.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the military held a loudspeaker broadcast on Sunday afternoon. It does not specify the border area where it happened, nor what was played over the speakers.

“Whether our military conducts additional loudspeaker broadcasts depends entirely on North Korea’s behavior,” the statement said.

The South withdrew loudspeakers from border areas in 2018, during a brief period of engagement with the North under Seoul’s previous liberal government.

In an emergency meeting led by National Security Director Chang Ho-jin, South Korean officials accused Pyongyang of trying to cause “anxiety and embarrassment” by sending the balloons to the South and stressed that North Korea would be “solely responsible.” for any future escalation of tension.

The North said its balloon campaign came after South Korean activists sent balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets as well as USB sticks filled with popular South Korean songs and dramas.

Pyongyang is extremely sensitive to such material and fears it could demoralize frontline troops and residents and ultimately weaken leader Kim Jong Un’s power, analysts say.

In the past, South Korea has used loudspeakers to blast anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and international news across the rivals’ heavily armed borders.

In 2015, when South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasting for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery barrages across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Last week, as tensions rose over balloons carrying garbage, South Korea also suspended a 2018 agreement to reduce hostilities along the border, allowing it to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly resume live-fire military exercises in border areas.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, in a meeting with top military commanders, called for extensive preparations against the possibility that the North would respond to the loudspeaker broadcasts with direct military action, his ministry said in a statement.

North Korea continued to fly hundreds of balloons into South Korea over the weekend, the third such campaign since late May.

The South’s military said the balloons that landed dropped trash, including plastic and paper waste, but no hazardous substances were found.

In his statement, Kim Yo Jong claimed that the North used about 1,400 balloons to release 7.5 tons of garbage from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

She also complained that anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets sent by South Korean activists had been found in border areas in recent days.

She said the North had initially planned to stop balloon launches on Sunday but decided to send more because the South had restarted loudspeaker broadcasts.

The South’s military, which is mobilizing rapid response units with chemicals and explosives to retrieve North Korean balloons and materials, has warned the public to beware of falling objects and not to touch balloons found on the ground, but to report them to police or military authorities .

In the previous two rounds of North Korean balloon activity, South Korean authorities found about 1,000 balloons that were tied to vinyl bags containing fertilizer, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, used batteries and waste paper.

Some were popped and scattered across roads, residential areas and schools. No particularly hazardous materials were found and no major damage was reported.

A South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak said it launched 10 balloons on Thursday carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and K-dramas and dollar bills.

South Korean media reported that another activist group also sent balloons containing 200,000 propaganda leaflets to North Korea on Friday.

Kim Jong Un has in recent years waged an intensifying campaign to eliminate South Korean cultural and linguistic influences.

In January, Kim announced that the North would abandon its longtime goal of peaceful unification with the South and rewrite its constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy.

Experts say Kim’s efforts to strengthen the North’s separate identity may be aimed at strengthening the Kim family’s dynastic rule.