North Korea Intensifies Threats over Anti-Pyongyang Leaflets

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Amid deteriorating inter-Korean ties, North Korea has been intensifying its attacks on South Korea over the increasing cross-border spread of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets by South Korean civic organizations.

On
Oct. 28, the North escalated the tone of its threat over the leaflets, saying its
military will take "resolute practical action" unless Seoul stops the groups from
sending leaflets.
The North's warnings came on two occasions this month during working-level
military talks held at the truce village of Panmunjom, but the latest one came
through a spokesman for the North's military via the official Korean Central News
Agency (KCNA) on Oct. 28.
Despite the Seoul government's repeated pleas to stop, the groups of civic
activists and North Korea defectors based in Seoul have continued sending
balloons carrying tens of thousands of leaflets, claiming that it is their duty
to open North Koreans' eyes to the truth.
The North has become increasingly tense about the propaganda pamphlets because of
the delicate situation of the North Korean regime, with rumours persisting over
the fragile health of leader Kim Jong-il. The North Korean leader has not been
seen in public since August, but North Korean officials have vehemently denied
reports of his illness.
In the latest inter-Korean military talks on Oct. 27, North Korea threatened to
suspend its joint industrial project with South Korea, citing the spread of
anti-North Korea leaflets. The North made the threat again during a brief meeting
of working-level military officials from the divided Koreas, the second of its
kind this month since inter-Korean military dialogue resumed earlier this month
after an eight-month hiatus.
The next day, North Korea threatened to strike South Korea with means "more
powerful than nuclear weapons" at the slightest sign of an attempt by Seoul to
preemptively strike the communist nation. The threat came one day after Pyongyang
accused the Seoul government of ignoring the spread of the anti-communist
propaganda leaflets by South Korean civic organizations.
"We clarify our stand that should the south Korean puppet authorities continue
scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our
army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned," the
North's official news agency, KCNA, quoted an unidentified spokesman for the
country's delegation to inter-Korean military talks as saying.
The spokesman went on to claim that South Korean officials, including Defense
Minister Lee Sang-hee, have officially chosen preemptive strike as their means to
attack the North and warned such an attempt will be countered with a more
powerful and advanced preemptive strike by North Korea. "The advanced preemptive
strike of our own style is based on a preemptive strike beyond imagination
relying on striking means more powerful than a nuclear weapon," he was quoted as
saying.
North Korea set off a nuclear device in 2006 in its first-ever nuclear explosion
test. It is believed to have some 40 kilograms of plutonium, enough to produce
six to eight nuclear bombs, according to South Korean officials. Despite the
bellicose rhetoric, the spokesman nonetheless urged the South Korean government
to resume talks with his communist nation, saying "practical actions are more
important than their lip-service."
Pyongyang cut off most of its official dialogue channels with Seoul after South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak was inaugurated in February with a pledge to take
a tougher stance against the communist North than his two liberal predecessors
Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, both of whom held historic summits with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il in the North Korean capital.
"If the South Korean puppet authorities keep ignoring the historic inter-Korean
declarations and all the North-South agreements based on them, quite contrary to
their words, the DPRK will make a crucial decision including the total severance
of the North-South relations," the North Korean official said.
"The North Korean side pointed out that the spread of leaflets is on the rise and
demanded that our side take immediate measures to halt their distribution (in the
North)," Col. Lee Sang-cheol, head of the North Korea policy bureau at the
Defense Ministry, told reporters.
Col. Lee earlier this month attended working-level dialogue with his North Korean
counterpart in the first military talks between the Koreas since January, but
that meeting ended in just a few hours as North Korean delegates used the venue
solely to criticize Seoul for spreading propaganda leaflets slandering their
leader Kim Jong-il. The Oct. 27 meeting, held on the roadside of a western route
that crosses the inter-Korean border, lasted less than 20 minutes.
Pyongyang also demanded Seoul take measures to repair military hotlines between
the countries that have been out of operation since May and to provide necessary
equipment and materials to help modernize its communication systems, the ministry
said in a released statement. "The North Korean side stressed the need to take
immediate measures to repair the military communication lines between the two and
demanded the South Korean side provide military communications equipment and
materials," it said.
South Korea agreed late last year to help modernize the North's outdated
communications systems to secure better communication channels with the communist
state, but has yet to do so amid continued tension with Pyongyang, which
frequently calls the South Korean president a traitor.
The two Koreas are divided by the world's most heavily fortified border, a legacy
of the 1950-53 Korean War and one of the world's last Cold War frontiers. The
countries are technically at war as the Korean War ended only with an armistice
treaty, not a peace agreement.
As a result of the current environment, a coalition of South Korean companies at
a joint industrial park in North Korea warned their businesses are being
threatened by anti-Pyongyang activists who continue to fly leaflets into the
communist state.
The Oct. 26 warning came a day before a group of families whose members were
abducted by North Korea said it will release about 100,000 anti-Pyongyang
leaflets via balloon into the communist country. According to official figures,
nearly 500 South Koreans were kidnapped by the North after the Korean War.
The statement by the business coalition is the second of its kind after a request
earlier this month that the civic groups, which also represent North Korean
defectors, stop floating such leaflets. "The leaflets are worsening inter-Korean
relations," the coalition said in a statement, arguing the practice hurts already
strained political ties and scares investors away.
The factory park is seen as one of the few symbols of rapprochement between the
two states that fought the 1950-53 Korean War. More than 33,000 North Korean
workers are currently earning dollars from 79 South Korean factories in the
Kaesong complex, located just north of the world's most heavily armed border. "If
the complex shuts down, it will further dampen the hopes of both your
organizations and our nation," the statement said, describing the park as the
only remaining "reconciliation channel."
The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to stop their propaganda warfare, which involved
floating leaflets and using loudspeakers to tout their own regimes across the
heavily armed border. The South Korean government has asked the anti-Pyongyang
groups to stop the leaflet activities, but to no avail.
Choi Song-ryong, who leads the association of families of abductees, said his
group will continue to press on with the act on Oct. 27. He said his leaflets
will contain the names of those abducted by North Korea. Other anti-Pyongyang
groups are planning similar moves at later dates.
North Korea's killing of a South Korean housewife in the country's resort
mountain a few months ago added more tension to ties. South Korea immediately
suspended the 10-year-old tour program to Mt. Kumgang located in the east coast
of the North.
Analysts say North Korea's unprecedentedly sensitive reaction to the leaflets is
something to do with its leader Kim Jong-il's heath. South Korean and U.S.
intelligence have reported that Kim, 66, suffered a stroke in the middle of
August and is now recovering after undergoing brain surgery. But most North
Koreans are not informed about the news because Kim's health is a taboo topic in
the communist state.
The leaflets also carry details about Kim's wives and the royal family and how
defectors in South Korea live, as well as the historical fact that it was North
Korea that ignited the Korean War, not the South as taught in the communist
state, according to media reports here.
"North Korea may take the leaflets as a serious threat to the country if Kim is
in no situation to show his presence by appearing in public right now," said Kim
Seong-bae, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Institute for National Security
Strategy.
Seoul, however, is concerned about the leaflets' effect on already worsening
relations with Pyongyang, with no tangible legitimate means to stop the groups.
The groups must "refrain (from the activities) in consideration of a number of
inter-Korean agreements," Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman for the Unification Ministry,
said in a daily press briefing.
The two Koreas have ceased hostilities along their heavily armed border since
2004, but the groups have been sending the leaflets for years, hoping they might
be helpful in expediting the collapse of the secretive regime. Seoul cannot
legally punish the groups because the 2004 military agreement on ending
hostilities is limited to activities happening inside the demilitarized zone, Kim
said.