Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, an activist group, poses before floating balloons filled with flyers criticizing North Korea, cash and USB drives loaded with K-pop music in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Yonhap

Experts concerned about burgeoning leaflet warBy Kwak Yeon-soo

An activist group in South Korea said Thursday it had floated around 10 large balloons toward North Korea, prompting some experts to question the effectiveness of anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets.

The Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), an activist group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said the balloons sent across the border were filled with 200,000 leaflets criticizing the reclusive country, cash and USB drives loaded with K-pop and trot music.

Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, said anti-Pyongyang leaflets are not effective at all in bringing about change in North Korea.

“Although leafleting can provoke anger from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and authorities, it cannot change the mindsets of North Korean citizens and make them revolt against the reclusive regime,” Yang said.

Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute, said the impact of sending propaganda flyers to North Korea is limited.

“There are several North Korean defectors who say that the leaflets affected their decision to flee the country, but those cases are extremely rare. If the activists are truly concerned about North Korean citizens and want to help improve their human rights conditions, they should consider sending radios, not flyers with provocative content about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife,” Cheong said.

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, said though leafleting can be an effective means of helping North Koreans see the truth in a reclusive country, activist groups should refrain from sending propaganda leaflets in public.

“I don’t think the FFNK’s intentions are pure. They are attention seekers who are trying to raise money,” Cho said. “If they fly the balloons publicly, North Korean soldiers are dispatched to areas where the leaflets fall and they collect those, preventing people from coming in contact with the leaflets.”

North Korean soldiers are seen building a strongpoint in the Demilitarized Zone in this photo taken from a South Korean observation tower in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap

Experts believe sending propaganda leaflets will only enrage North Korea and result in worsening cross-border relations.

“The North will probably resume sending trash balloons like it warned it will to send ‘a hundred times the amount’ of what the South sends. It’s going to blame the South for worsening inter-Korean relations and justify its actions to come,” Yang said.

Cheong said Pyongyang will react strongly against Seoul.

“I think Kim Yo-jong will issue a statement soon. They could be contemplating on how to respond to the activist group’s actions” he said.

South Korea fully suspended the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement on Tuesday as a countermeasure to North Korea's trash balloon campaigns and jamming of GPS signals last week.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military is closely monitoring the North for signs of provocations, adding that no signs of retaliatory action have been detected as of 3 p.m. Thursday.

The Ministry of Unification said it will closely communicate with relevant agencies to manage the situation.

"We are handling the situation by taking into account the Constitutional Court's ruling that says the leaflet launches are an issue of guaranteeing freedom of expression," the ministry said in a statement.