South Korea recently activated massive loudspeakers along its border with North Korea and began broadcasting news, political messages, and pop music for the first time in a decade. This move comes as a response to Pyongyang launching hundreds of balloons filled with feces and trash over its neighbor this month. The fecal matter is believed to be from the country’s public restrooms.
The North Korean government began sending filth-laden balloons in response to South Korean independent activists, often including defectors from the North, relaunching campaigns that use balloons to float pamphlets containing news about the outside world and political content into North Korea. Former leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in had banned leaflet drops, leading to outrage among free speech and anti-communist activists, but a South Korean constitutional court overturned the ban in September.
In late May, residents of Gyeonggi province, near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), were warned by the South Korean military via an “air raid warning” about incoming swarms of balloons from North Korea. Leaders of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) counted approximately 260 balloons dropped into the South’s border region during the first few rounds of invasion, urging locals to stay away due to concerns that they may be poisonous or otherwise hazardous.
Following research on the balloons, Seoul confirmed that they contained conventional trash waste and feces, not radioactive or toxic materials. North Korean senior official Kim Yo-jong confirmed North Korea’s intent to retaliate against political leaflet campaigns and vowed to continue sending “filth” balloons if necessary in a message on North Korean state media.
South Korea initially responded to the drops by suspending a 2018 military agreement on June 2nd. South Korean National Security Director Chang Ho-jin decried the drops as “absurd, irrational acts of provocation that a normal country can’t imagine” and vowed an “unbearable” countermeasure. North Korea repeated its balloon intimidation this weekend, dropping a third round of trash balloons over the Southern border areas. According to the JCS, out of hundreds of trash balloons launched, only about 80 made it into South Korea.
The South Korean National Security Council (NSC) then announced the expected countermeasure. The responses we take may be difficult for North Korea to bear, but they will be necessary measures to protect our people and sovereignty,” the NSC said in a statement. The military was prepared to resume the broadcasts immediately if North Korea engages in further provocations.
JoongAng Daily reported on Monday that the JCS documented some evidence that North Korea may be installing loudspeakers of its own on the border. It also confirmed that no broadcasts were scheduled for Monday, but the military was “ready to resume the broadcasts immediately if North Korea engages in despicable behavior.
Kim Yo-jong published another missive on Sunday threatening more balloon drops. Our counteraction (of sending balloons) was to end on the 9th, but the situation has changed … The loudspeaker broadcast provocation has finally begun in border areas,” she wrote, according to Yonhap. This is a prelude to a very dangerous situation.
The current state of affairs between North and South Korea appears to be a departure from the relative stability that was achieved following former American President Donald Trump’s meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. While Moon took a more conciliatory stance towards Kim, and Trump prioritized peace on the Korean peninsula, the current South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has adopted a more hardline approach against the nuclear-armed communists, with minimal interest from the Biden administration.