South Korea’s cross-border broadcasts trigger North Korea’s launch of trash balloons: UN Command

SEOUL – The US-led United Nations Command said South Korea’s broadcasting of anti-Kim Jong Un propaganda through loudspeakers along the border with North Korea has encouraged, rather than deterred, Pyongyang to launch balloons carrying rubbish towards the South.

According to an Oct 11 memo from the Seoul Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) obtained by South Korean English-language daily The Korea Herald, the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts by South Korea “failed to deter the North Korean trash balloons” and “gave North Korea an excuse for additional launches”, the UN Command found after a special investigation.

The UN Command, tasked with enforcing the armistice ending the Korean War, also said South Korea entering the demilitarised zone, installing the loudspeakers there and playing the propaganda broadcasts each amounted to a violation of the armistice.

The South Korean military did not have the UN Commander’s approval.

South Korean media outlet Korea JoongAng Daily reported on Oct 21 that the South Korean military has also used the broadcasts to inform North Korean citizens and soldiers that Pyongyang’s troops were sighted assisting Russia in its war against Ukraine since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in June.

The broadcasts also said that six North Korean soldiers had been killed in an airstrike on the Russian front line of the occupied Donetsk region earlier in October, and Russia is forming a special battalion with 3,000 North Korean troops.

However, a total of 18 North Korean soldiers were reported to have deserted their positions.

Through the broadcasts, Korea JoongAng Daily said, South Korea aims to undermine the morale of North Korean soldiers stationed near the military demarcation line.

The Military Armistice Commission of the UN Command on Oct 10 relayed the conclusion of its special investigation to the defence ministry’s North Korea Strategy Division and JCS’s Joint Operations Branch.

According to the memo, South Korean Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun said the findings by the UN Command were “unacceptable”. The minister asked that a request be made for the UN Command to reassess the conclusion and for ongoing negotiations on other issues to be put on hold for the time being.

At the South Korean minister’s instructions, the director of the JCS Directorate of Operations called the UN Command director of operations on Oct 11.

The chief of the defence ministry’s Policy Planning Bureau and the UN Command chief of staff also spoke over the phone on the same day.

During the call, the UN Command confirmed that the South Korean military had committed the violations. The South Korean Defence Minister then ordered that a letter of protest be sent to the UN Command.

The memo contained the defence ministry’s rationale for playing the broadcasts at Pyongyang, which it viewed as a matter of “right to self-defence” and a “response to North Korea’s illegal acts”, namely the trash balloon launches.

The memo showed that the ministry was attempting to counter the UN Command’s conclusion with the logic that the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts were “necessary, non-physical measures of self-defence to deter North Korea’s acts of hostility” and that the North Korean trash balloons were earlier deemed a breach of the armistice as well.

The broadcasts also fit the “principle of reciprocity”, as the number of balloons North Korea sent over on 27 occasions totalled 6,283 to date. North Korea had carried out other “non-military” provocations such as GPS-jamming attacks at least 108 times to date.

“The broadcasts at North Korea should continue until the North Korean military’s hostile acts stop,” the ministry said in the memo.

The memo revealed that the UN Command had turned down the South Korean military’s request on June 9 to enter the demilitarised zone to install the loudspeakers for the anti-Pyongyang broadcasts. The UN Command feared that by doing so, it could potentially escalate the crisis.

But the ministry said in the memo “measures of self-defence” would not require the UN Commander’s approval.

In a phone call with The Korea Herald, a senior official of the defence ministry said he was not aware that anything beyond the UN Command special investigation had taken place.

According to the memo, another another senior official who is said to have briefed the minister about the UN Command’s conclusion denied having any knowledge of the correspondence.

The UN Command said it was unable to confirm The Korea Herald’s inquiries on the recent communication with the Defence Ministry in Seoul about its special investigation.

On June 9, South Korea announced that it would resume the border broadcasts, which had been halted since a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, in response to North Korea’s repeated launching of trash balloons into the South.

Beginning from May 28, North Korea has continued to send to the South waste-carrying balloons over multiple occasions. Following the South Korean broadcasts, North Korea began to retaliate by airing pro-Kim Jong Un broadcasts across the border. THE KOREA HERALD / ASIA NEWS NETWORK