North Korea has continued its current propaganda offensive by sending 600 extra trash-filled balloons throughout the border, the South’s army stated Sunday.
Personnel in hazmat fits have been seen accumulating piles of garbage containing the whole lot from cigarette butts to bits of cardboard and plastic.
South Korea has referred to as the newest provocation from its nuclear-armed neighbor “irrational” and “low-class” however, in contrast to the spate of current ballistic missile launches, the trash marketing campaign doesn’t violate U.N. sanctions on Kim Jong Un’s remoted regime.
Seoul has warned of sturdy countermeasures except the North stops the balloon bombardment, saying it runs counter to the armistice settlement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War hostilities.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff referred to as on the general public to steer clear of the garbage heaps, although “no hazardous substances have been found.”
Around 900 balloons have been despatched southward by Pyongyang since Tuesday, the JCS stated, including that the newest wave started arriving late Saturday.
As of round 10 a.m. (1 a.m. GMT) on Sunday, “approximately 600 balloons have been identified, with about 20 to 50 balloons per hour moving through the air.”
The balloons are touchdown in northern provinces, together with the capital Seoul and the adjoining space of Gyeonggi, that are collectively residence to almost half of South Korea’s inhabitants.
The newest batch of balloons has been stuffed with “waste such as cigarette butts, scrap paper, fabric pieces and plastic,” JCS stated.
“Our military is conducting surveillance and reconnaissance from the launch points of the balloons, tracking them through aerial reconnaissance, and collecting the fallen debris, prioritizing public safety,” it stated.
“We urge the public to avoid contact with the fallen waste balloons and report them to the nearest military unit or police station,” it added.
Balloon wars
South Korea’s National Security Council is anticipated to fulfill Sunday to debate a plan to reply to the balloons by resuming loudspeaker propaganda campaigns alongside the border with North Korea, Yonhap reported.
In the previous, South Korea has broadcast anti-Kim propaganda into the North, which infuriates Pyongyang.
Activists within the South have additionally floated their very own balloons over the border, full of leaflets and typically money, rice or USB thumb drives loaded with Ok-dramas.
Earlier this week, Pyongyang described its “sincere gifts” as a retaliation for the propaganda-laden balloons despatched into North Korea.
“If Seoul chooses to resume anti-North broadcast via loudspeakers along the border, which Pyongyang dislikes as much as anti-Kim balloons, it could lead to limited armed conflict along border areas, such as in the West Sea,” stated Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Korean peninsula technique at Sejong Institute.
In 2018, throughout a interval of improved inter-Korean relations, each leaders agreed to “completely cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain,” together with the distribution of leaflets.
South Korea’s parliament handed a legislation in 2020 criminalizing sending leaflets into the North, however the legislation – which didn’t deter the activists – was struck down final yr as a violation of free speech.
Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong – one in all Pyongyang’s key spokespeople – mocked South Korea for complaining concerning the balloons this week, saying North Koreans have been merely exercising their freedom of expression.
The two Koreas’ propaganda offensives have typically escalated into bigger tit-for-tats.
In June 2020, Pyongyang unilaterally reduce off all official army and political communication hyperlinks with the South and blew up an inter-Korean liaison workplace on its aspect of the border.
The trash marketing campaign comes after analysts have warned Kim is testing weapons earlier than sending them to Russia to be used in Ukraine, with South Korea’s protection minister saying this weekend that Pyongyang has now shipped about 10,000 containers of arms to Moscow, in return for Russian satellite tv for pc know-how.
Source: www.dailysabah.com