Police yesterday intervened in a tense confrontation between residents of a South Korean border town and activists attempting to send propaganda leaflets into North Korea, preventing the launch which had prompted threats of retaliation from Pyongyang.
The dispute began near a park in the border town of Paju, about 40km north of Seoul, when a dozen people with their faces hooded seized an activists’ truck carrying balloons and leaflets.
Meanwhile, about 100 police surrounded a bus carrying about 20 activists after residents hurled eggs at it, shouting: “Go back. Don’t put our lives in danger.”
Photo: AFP
The activists had planned to release balloons carrying about 40,000 leaflets criticizing the North Korean government across the heavily-militarized frontier. However, with Pyongyang threatening to retaliate over the launch, local residents set up road blocks with tractors and held a placard reading: “Stop anti-North leaflet launch jeopardizing our lives!”
“We will become the victims of shelling if leaflets are scattered,” read another placard put up in a tree.
The activists retreated after a two-hour protest during which they traded insults with residents and chanted slogans such as: “Let’s terminate the dictatorship of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un.”
However, they did not abandon their attempt entirely, parking their bus on a road leading to the park with some insisting they should try again to float the balloons.
Despite Seoul’s stance that the activists have a democratic right to launch the leaflets, police had said they might intervene to prevent a clash between activists and residents. More than 1,000 riot police were deployed in and around the park yesterday, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
Pyongyang, which refers to the activists as“human scum,” has long condemned the launches and in recent weeks has stepped up demands for Seoul to ban the practice entirely. Two weeks ago, North Korean border guards attempted to shoot down some balloons, triggering a brief exchange of heavy machine-gun fire between the two sides.
“If a rash act of scattering leaflets slandering our dignity and system is taken again in South Korea, its consequences will be very grave,” the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary yesterday.
The North has warned that failure to halt future launches could scupper the planned resumption of high-level talks between the two nations. Paju residents insisted that the threats of military retaliation by North Korea are credible and that the activists are putting their lives and businesses at risk. The South says there is no legal basis for a blanket ban, but it has urged the activists to exercise common sense and restraint. Police have previously prevented the launches at times of high cross-border tensions, citing the possible dangers posed to local residents.
“Those instigated by North Korea had ambushed us to block our event today but we will come back,” the main organizer of yesterday’s event Busan University professor Choi Woo-won told reporters.
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