Unconventional campaigns continue at the border between North and South Korea

Well, tonight we're focusing on a very specific kind of warfare involving balloons being sent between North and South Korea. You may recall that in recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons over the border into South Korea. Now, those balloons have been filled with garbage and sometimes even animal feces. On the other side of the border, South Korean activists have been sending their own balloons into the North. By contrast, the South Korean balloons are quite sophisticated. They're made with 3D printers and equipped with leaflet dispensers and even loud speakers. South Korean balloons can cost up to $1000 a piece, and activists can even track their locations by GPS. Just to illustrate how much tensions are soaring between the two Koreas, earlier today South Korean soldiers fired warning shots and North Korean troops who had reportedly crossed the border by mistake. Caitlin Kelly has more. Kim Jong Un is a traitor that opposes the people. That's the message this balloon will broadcast when it lands in North Korea. Under the cover of darkness, activists in Seoul, South Korea are quietly releasing specialised balloons, each equipped with leaflet dispensers and speakers, known as the Committee for Reform and Opening Up of Johnson. Another word for North Korea, the 30 strong group have been working on these floating devices since 2016. The most important function of the smart balloon is its timer that lets balloons start scattering the leaflets a few hours after balloon is launched. Also, there's an electronic circuit that controls the scattering of leaflets repeatedly at regular intervals of time. Those are a bit expensive. The balloons will land as far as Pyongyang in North Korea, costing up to $1000. The devices will disseminate thousands of leaflets via a dispenser and play pre recorded messages criticizing the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. Despite fears of reprimand from the South Korean authorities or reprisals from North Korean agents, the group are determined there was no request from the government to stop launching our balloons. However, this should never be stopped for the sake of the North Korean people and their freedom and rights by delivering information on freedom. This comes as balloon tactics are growing in popularity amidst the frosty relationship between the two Koreas. Just last month, balloons from North Korea landed in the South, mostly filled with garbage and even animal faeces. As analysts say tensions between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years. Also, where is all of this headed? For more, I'm joined by Aiden Foster Carter, an honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University. Thanks so much for being with us here on France 24. First of all, how long has the so-called balloon warfare been going on between North and South Korea and and why are we seeing an escalation of it now? Yeah, I suppose it depends how you define it, because it's two different things really, though I suppose it's it's both balloons from, from, oh, for at least a decade, maybe longer, South Korean activist groups like the one that you just profiled have sent balloons. I didn't. They've got very sophisticated lately that way into the North. North Korea is absolutely furious about this. And South Korea and different South Korean governments, because South Korea is a democracy. Of course they have elections like we do, like you are about to do in France, have different views of it. The previous South Korean government which was left-leaning and very much pro engagement with the government of North Korea tried to stop it, this balloon sending past a law and so on. But the Constitutional Court in South Korea said that was restricting freedom of speech. And now South Korea has quite a hard line right wing government which doesn't mind this happening even though the North is provoked. So what's the new that's been going on for some time, these people playing cat and masks with their own South Korean authorities. What is new is the North Koreans responding in this particular very peculiar way, sending garbage filled balloons. That's what's new. Yeah, we know that the balloons from North Korea are filled with garbage or or something worse. So we can draw our own conclusions about that. But what kind of messages are the balloons from from South Korea carrying, whether we're talking about leaflets or recorded messages? And in some cases, the payloads include USB thumb drives with clips of K pop music on them. What's the point of all this? Well, the point is to, as they think, to subvert or to, to open the eyes of the South Korean people. The, the, the view of the activists, many of whom are themselves the escapees from North Korea, who are few and far between and understandably militant and angry with the regime that oppressed them. They, you know, they want to open the eyes of the North Korean people, people who, of course, have only one source of information to say, actually, there is a better way. Your leader whom you Revere is actually a traitor who is keeping you poor. And furthermore, we have all this funky music which is goes on the USB drives there. It must be said there's quite a lot of controversy in South Korean circles about this, not just the politics of engagement left to right. Should they be doing it? But we don't really know how many land, how many are red and so on. When directors do come South, it's not at all clear that they've been influenced by these things. But anyway, it goes on and, and they will go on doing it unless, unless they're stopped. And the North Koreans, we, we have to see how, if they'll go on sending their rather unpleasant balloons. But do you think the South Korean activists are actually trying to change the minds of the North Koreans or are they just trying to be a, a thorn in the side of Pyongyang? Well, a bit of both, I think actually, that's, that's a good question. The distinction, I mean, whether this really works and how you get through is, is a difficult matter because of course there are huge penalties in North Korea for if any citizen is found having picked up these, you picked up the leaflets or whatever it might be. Just as there are huge penalties even now, apparently including the death sentence if you're caught listening to sort of pirated sat at K Pop or watching South Korean TV dramas. Because of course they've they've come in by more conventional means, smothered across the border on USB drives or maybe other technologies now. So it's pretty risky for people to do this. So you can see it's it's a contentious field in a number of areas quite apart from, you know, do you really want to provoke the North Koreans? I mean, obviously there are few rights and freedom and speech and so on, but this is a great idea. I mean, the next thing is that they maybe they will they might fire they've occasionally fired across the border or the South did as a sort of tit for tat as it escalates. The South reactivated loud speakers across the border, which again can blast news of the free world quote, UN quote and K pop into the north and miserable North Korean conscripts who have, you know, horrible conditions near the border are there for years and years might well be susceptible to it. So you you can see this escalating. You kind of wonder whether the the game is, well, I do, whether the game is worth the candle in terms of risks at the border that we have to hope that both sides will dial it down. So last week, Pyongyang claims to have sent more than 3000 balloons carrying 15 tons of trash into South Korea. What is the goal of this campaign from the North Korean point of view? I think symbolism. I mean, this is a difficult one to call. And I mean, nobody wants to sound complacent about a situation where, you know, one side is a rogue nuclear state and is constantly threatening a fire and brimstone annihilation. But, you know, words and deeds are different. I mean, the South Korean defence minister says that a barking dog doesn't bite, which gives you some idea of the the contempt in which the current South Korean government holds the North. If you look at what the Kim Jong Un, the the leader who's now been in power for 12 years, the third Kim has actually done, he hasn't actually killed any S Koreans. He has blown the legs off a couple of sergeants in a mining incident in the DMZ in 2015. And obviously that's not nice, but it's not the same as annihilation either. He seems to go for symbolic stuff like he sent drones over Seoul, but not military drones, just sort of teasing in a way, saying see what I can do on last December, for instance. And I can cite other incidents. So, oh, you know, while while wishing that nobody, they they wouldn't do stuff that is as stupid and negative as this. I mean, they sort of the, the idea is, I think more symbolism than reality. Trash filled balloons at the end of the day are a nuisance. They're not a threat. Now this has escalated to the point where over the weekend the South Korean military responded to this latest wave of garbage filled balloons by playing loudspeaker broadcast into North Korea, which is the first time that that's happened since 2018. Why is that significant? Well, again, as I mentioned earlier, the if you are a miserable North Korean conscript listening to this funky music of being told how much better things are in the South, that is not something that leader Kim Jong Un wants, wants to have happen. And so there is, you know, there, I take some comfort. There is a degree of calibration of a caution on both sides. So the South Koreans, yes, they, they've, they've turned these things off under both conservative and more left-leaning governments in the past. And even this time they they turned it on. Well, they took down the permanent installations. These are mobile ones, which they have ready here at short notice, but they only turned them on for one day on Sunday, I think quite briefly. They didn't have them on on Monday and I don't think they've been on today, Tuesday either. Of course, it's now Wednesday in South Korea and forgetting the time difference. So, you know, there's a certain amount of calibration and North Korea will get that message. So, you know, we we're doing this, you don't like it, we don't like what you're doing. We couldn't do more and worse. Will you please stop what you're doing? And it's notable the 2nd wave of South of North Korean trash balloons didn't have any extra in this time. And we're not even though they threatened to increase it a hundredfold with their usual bombastic language. Actually there were much fewer. There were a few 100 this time. So maybe this will die. I don't. One has to hope so. We only have about a minute left. But I wanted to ask you, you know, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, has has said that Seoul's resumption of these loudspeaker broadcasts were a prelude to what she called a very dangerous situation. So where do you see this going from here? Well, I'm hoping it will die down. The risk is always that you know one side will come up with something which is more than a pinprick or that one side or another will miscalculate. They did do we never seem to mention this, but as well as the the, the trash filled balloons, they jammed GPS signals. That was less serious than you might think. It was a bit worrying for some, some some ferries and things like that. They have, of course, immense cyber skills, which they use like most of what the noise they have for bad rather than good. They might try a very big cyber assault on North Korean, sorry, South Korean systems. I mean, they've been into South Korean nuclear power stations, communications before now, something like that maybe. But maybe they'll just stop as they have in the past. I hope that's not wishful thinking. OK, we'll have to leave it there. Aiden Foster Carter, an honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University. Thanks so much for being with us here on France 24. Thank you, mercy, and thank you for watching. Stay tuned for.