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catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 8:37 pm Post subject: S.Korean activists send leaflets despite Pyongyang's threat |
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IMJINGAK, South Korea (AFP) � Activists on Saturday let loose 10 giant balloons filled with radios, DVDs money and leaflets into North Korea in defiance of threats from Pyongyang.
Around 200 hundred people, mostly defectors, gathered at a public park in Imjingak near the North-South border to release the balloons, which carried slogans such as "Abolish gulags" and "Down with Kim Jong-Il's Dictatorship."
The leaflets contained the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations and criticism about North Korea's communist regime.
Park Sang-Hak, an activist and former defector from the North, told AFP that the DVDs had a documentary about Pyongyang's human rights abuses and "seedy aspects" of leader Kim Jong-Il's private life.
The release of the balloons comes after the North's military last month called for the end of leafleting, which it described as a "despicable psychological smear campaign".
It then threatened to scrap agreements guaranteeing the safety of South Koreans crossing the border -- effectively halting passage to and from a South Korea-invested industrial park in the North's Kaesong City near the border.
The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to end decades of official propaganda warfare across their border but the South's unification ministry says it has "no grounds legally or in any other way" to halt leafleting by private groups.
South Korea has urged activists to halt the campaign on the grounds that it inflames already strained relations.
Tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul have been simmering since the unexplained sinking of a South Korean warship near the disputed border on March 26 with suspicions growing that the North might have been involved.
The North has also sealed some assets owned by Seoul at the North's Mount Kumgang tourist resort and announced it would let a new partner take over the tour business there from South Korea's Hyundai Asan.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100501/wl_asia_afp/skoreankorearightsmilitary |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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Whenever I read about these leaflet drops, I picture some kid in North Korea finding one of the pamphlets on his way to school, and showing it to his teacher when he gets to class, with the kid and his family subsequently being sent to a gulag for possession of subversive literature. Or similar sceanarios.
Which might be an acceptable price to pay if this were making a major contribution to the collapse of tyranny in the North. As it stands, though, I have yet to be convinced that these drops are anything more than just a way for embittered defectors and right-wing weekend-warriors to make-believe that they're really sticking it to Kim Jong-il. |
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djsmnc
Joined: 20 Jan 2003
Location: Dave's ESL Cafe
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| Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
Whenever I read about these leaflet drops, I picture some kid in North Korea finding one of the pamphlets on his way to school, and showing it to his teacher when he gets to class, with the kid and his family subsequently being sent to a gulag for possession of subversive literature. Or similar sceanarios.
Which might be an acceptable price to pay if this were making a major contribution to the collapse of tyranny in the North. As it stands, though, I have yet to be convinced that these drops are anything more than just a way for embittered defectors and right-wing weekend-warriors to make-believe that they're really sticking it to Kim Jong-il. |
Yeah, but knowing that maybe just one person will find one and say "WTF am I doing here?" before escaping to Beijing and being denied repatriation. Then, somehow, it will matter. |
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thomas pars
Joined: 29 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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^ Often when defectors get here they often wished they had never left. North Koreans are so culturally/technologically isolated they have a difficult time adjusting to South Korean life. The South Korean government used to give a one time 20K resettlement offer, but as since staggered the payments. Why? Many NK's fell victim to pyramid schemes because they have so little knowledge of money. On average they are about 3 inches shorter. And when they come to height obsessed SK they find themselves outcasts.
Their accents give them away and they are discriminated against.
Oh and the doctors and lawyers that come over here realize that their degrees are not recognized. And have to start schooling all over again.
Sure it is better than living in a brutal repressive regime. But things are so happily ever after for them when they come over here. |
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