Happy Birthday, Fat Boy

Activists who send leaflets to North Korea by balloon to denounce its totalitarian government said Monday they plan to include local currency as an incentive to pick up new propaganda to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il. [….]

Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon renewed a warning Monday that the activists could face jail or fines if they send North Korea money without government permission. But the activists said they were ready for any punishment, adding leaflets and currency would be dispatched near the birthday of Kim Jong Il, which is Feb. 16. [AP, via IHT]

.. which is ironic if you stop to think that North Korea is the producer of the world’s best quality counterfeit bank notes, and I’ve seen no suggestion that these North Korean notes are fakes. I wonder where they got all of the North Korean money. North Korea prints three different kinds of currency, two of which are for the exclusive use for foreigners and very senior officials.

The activists, mostly North Korean defectors and family members of abductees, sound ready to go through with a campaign of civil disobedience.

They displayed a stack of North Korean 5,000-won bills before reporters, saying each note ($1.30) could buy about 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of rice in the North. “We are sending money to our family members,” said Choi Sung-yong, an activist whose father was abducted from his fishing boat in the 1960s and taken to North Korea. “We don’t believe we’re violating the law … If the government tries to punish us, we will take the punishment.”

Bear in mind that the South Korean government’s nominal excuse for this prohibition is contained in a stack of agreements that North Korea may well have just ripped up (it’s not entirely clear which agreements the North Koreans have repudiated). If not, we’re talking about just another agreement signed with North Korea.

More background here, and don’t miss GI Korea’s post. You can contribute to the balloon launch effort here.