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Balloon People Keep Up the Pressure

“We’re going to send 500,000 propaganda leaflets, 1,000 CDs showing footage of a skirmish between South and North Korean Navies in waters off Yeonpyeong Island, 1,000 radios, and 3,000 one-dollar bills on three to four occasions until June 7,” said Choi Sung-yong, the leader of a group named Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea.

“We have to let North Koreans and the international community know that the explosion of the Cheonan was a terrorist attack launched at Kim Jong-il’s orders. We’ll use the leaflets revealing the truth to accuse Kim so the deaths of the 46 fallen sailors won’t have been in vain.” [Chosun Ilbo]

The North Korean Freedom Coalition supports the groups that send these leaflet balloons into North Korea.

5 Responses

  1. Helium balloons bearing leaflets and goodies are the weapon of choice to topple Jucheism. Oh, the irony of it all!

  2. What are North Korean people supposed to do with one dollar bills? I would rather see South Koreans “making it rain” with individually wrapped Choco Pies.

  3. I guess a socialist paradise has to have priorities, right?

    Company managers working in the Kaesong Industrial Complex believe there will not be serious problems even if North Korean involvement in the Cheonan incident is confirmed.

    The CEO of one such company said in a telephone interview with the Daily NK today, requesting anonymity, “I worry about leaflets being spread in North Korea; the North warned on the 16th that they would block overland passage if leaflets continue to be spread. However, regarding the Cheonan incident, I do not anticipate any disadvantages for the Kaesong Complex.”

    Leaflets, not nukes threaten the Juche cult. Blow up ships, no problem. Send information by balloon? Oh, Korean War 2.0!

  4. Actually The $1 bills are probably extremely useful to the people in North Korea who find them.

    US dollars (and Chinese currency) are used extensively in North Korean “unofficial markets.” North Koreans can trade foods they have grown outside the official systems (sometimes in their backyard “victory gardens”), and various household services and consumer goods (including imports of second hand clothing from China). People can also buy and sell a wide range of “black market products” such as South Korean drama CDs!

    The markets are quite an interesting phenomenon and a sure sign things are fraying badly in the so-called Socialist Paradise. Authorities usually allow such markets and people in North Korea suffer a whole lot more when there is a crackdown (as during the ill-managed currency reform several months ago).

  5. Too bad we can’t have the US Navy releasing these balloons in international waters in the Yellow/West Sea as punishment for the Choenan (the ROK would never let us release balloons from their soil) . Maddening how the US government acts like it has no leverage over nK.