North Korea's Revenge Mission By Delivering Anti-South Korean Leaflets

DMZ region on the Korean border (doc. Wikimedia commons)

JAKARTA - Tensions between North Korea and South Korea continue to increase. Pyongyang has also prepared various methods to counter the propaganda actions carried out by South Korea.

Launching Reuters, Monday, June 22, tensions between the two countries increased after North Korea blew up the joint liaison office some time ago. Not only that, Pyongyang will also send thousands of propaganda pamphlets to South Korea, in response to anti-North Korean leaflets at the end of May.

When state media reported angry North Koreans preparing to launch a campaign by distributing large-scale leaflets, South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles cross-border affairs, urged the plan to be stopped. The Unification minister argued that the move would violate the inter-Korean peace agreement.

The United Front department of North Korea's ruling party, which is in charge of inter-Korean affairs, has rejected calls by the South Korean Unification Minister. They said that what the South Korean Unification Ministry said was absurd nonsense.

"Given their own mistakes, how dare they utter words like 'remorse' and 'offense'?" said a spokesman for the department, in a statement carried by state media KCNA.

"When they put on our shoes, the South Korean authorities will understand a little bit how disgusted we are of them and how much it offends us," the statement said.

The two Koreas were still technically at war when the 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty. The two sides carried out a leaflet campaign for decades, but agreed to end 'all acts of hostility' in the 2018 peace agreement.

Kim Jong-un's meeting with Moon Jae-in (doc. Wikimedia commons)

But some groups, led by North Korean defectors, sent leaflets along with food, banknotes, mini radios and USBs containing South Korean drama and news. These items are usually sent by balloon over the border or put in bottles and then thrown into rivers.

Last week, one group of defectors even floated hundreds of plastic bottles filled with rice, medicine and masks. These items were floated in the sea near the South-North Korean border.

The North also often uses balloons and drones to fly anti-South Korean leaflets. In the past, people who obtained these anti-South Korean flyers were rewarded with stationery if they reported to the police.