DPRK garbage balloons land at S. Korea's presidential compound
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Trash-filled balloons, K-pop songs, and propaganda messages are boosting tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
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South Korean officials clean up the contents of a trash-carrying balloon sent by the DPRK after it landed on a street in Seoul on July 24, 2024. (AFP)
Garbage-filled balloons launched by the DPRK landed on the South Korean president's compound in downtown Seoul, the Yonhap news agency reported, despite the area's no-fly zone and military protection.
Although there were no reported damages, the chemical response team was dispatched, according to AFP.
“The chemical, biological, and radiological [warfare] response team has safely collected the trash balloons,” the presidential security service told the French news agency, confirming the results from the investigation revealing a lack of danger and contamination.
The security service refused to reveal if President Yoon Suk Yeol was at the compound during the balloons' landing, while his office shared that he did not have an official schedule on Wednesday.
The ongoing balloon war
More balloons were sent across the border into South Korea on Wednesday morning, Seoul's military stated, marking the DPRK's 10th garbage balloon launch since May.
The northern nation has dropped over 2,000 large balloons within the last few months, containing newspaper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, and manure.
The balloon launches come as a response to South Korean activists' distribution of political leaflets through their own balloons across the border, as well as blasting K-pop songs and propaganda messages.
South Korea amps up propaganda loudspeakers
South Korea announced on Sunday that it will increase its anti-Pyongyang loudspeaker broadcasts along the border for the first time in 40 days in response to the DPRK's ongoing trash-balloon launches.
A Sunday statement from the joint chiefs of staff said, "Effective from 1300 (0400 GMT) our military will conduct full-scale broadcasts along the borders as we have warned repeatedly," announcing in an earlier statement, "The North is launching another batch of rubbish-carrying balloons."
"Please report them to the military or police and refrain from direct contact with the objects."
Seoul warned that the DPRK would "bear the brunt of decisive damage from its tension-raising acts committed in the border area" during its declaration of the start of the full-scale propaganda broadcasts.
"We gravely warn that all responsibility lies squarely with the North Korean regime," it added.
Last month, South Korea's Incheon International Airport was temporarily shut down following the DPRK's overnight launch of over 250 trash-filled balloons.
Retaliating to S. Korea's measures
In 2020, South Korea's Constitutional Court invalidated a law criminalizing the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda, citing it as an undue restriction on free speech. Consequently, experts argued that there were no legal grounds for the government to intervene in South Koreans' balloon launches into the DPRK.
In a pointed response, Kim Yo Jong, the Deputy Director of the Publicity and Information Department of the Workers' Party of Korea and the influential sister of Kim Jong Un, derided South Korea's objections to the balloons, asserting that DPRK citizens were simply exercising their freedom of expression.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have endured for an extended period as a result of systemic escalation on the part of Japan, the US, and South Korea.
The three nations have been conducting joint naval drills in the peninsula and along the demilitarized zone, which has triggered major security concerns on the part of DPRK.
