Seoul – South Korea has started to dismantle speakers that reject anti-North Propaganda of Korean through the border, while the liberal administration of President Lee Myung seeks to repair fractured relations with Pyongyang.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense said that the withdrawal was “a practical measure to mitigate the inter-corrense tensions without having an impact on the posture of the military preparation”.
This decision follows the suspension of propaganda emissions in June on the orders of Lee, a defender of reconciliation who has framed warmer relations with North Korea as an economic service – a means of minimizing geopolitical responsibility that has long been that the South Korea stock market has been undervalued.
“Reinforcement of peace in border regions will help to mitigate tensions throughout South Korea, and the increase in dialogue and exchanges will improve the economic situation,” said Lee at a press conference last month.
The students of primary school watch the North Korean team from the Unification Observation Post in Paju, South Korea.
(Ahn Young-Joon / Associated Press)
Used for the first time by North Korea in 1962, with South Korea which followed a year later, the propaganda speakers have long been a decisive characteristic of the warm and cold relationship between Seoul and Pyongyang, lit and extinguished with the wax and the decline of good will.
The last major judgment took place during a period of relaxation in 2004 and lasted until 2015, when two South Korean soldiers stationed by the border were mutilated by land mines which, according to military officials, had been secretly installed by North Korean soldiers of weeks earlier.
Played by speakers set up in the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, an extent of land 2.5 miles wide between the two countries, the South Korea emissions once presented live song and propaganda by soldiers stationed along the border. In recent years, however, speakers have played a pre-plane programming that goes from the pure and simple opprobrium to the more subtle messaging intended to impregnate listeners with pro-Sud sympathies of South Korea.
The programming has included K-Pop songs with words that serve to make invitations to be lacking in South Korea, like a 2010 love song that says: “Go, do not refuse me and do not approach me”, or the weather reports whose power lies in their precision-and you have sometimes been accompanied by messages like “It goes from the rain this afternoon, so make sure you yourself.”
With a maximum range of around 19 miles which makes them unlikely to reach the main population centers in North Korea, the efficiency of these emissions is questioned by certain experts.
However, several North Korean defectors cited the programs as part of the reason for which they decided to flee South Korea. A former artillery officer who defected in 2013 recalled that it was partly won over by weather reports.
“Whenever the South Korean broadcast said that it was raining that time at that time, it was still crying,” he told South Korean media last year.
(Ahn Young-Joon / Associated Press)
North Korea, however, considers emissions as a provocation and has often threatened to retaliate with military action. In 2015, Pyongyang proved this threat by pulling a rocket in a South Korean speaker, leading to an exchange of artillery fire between the two soldiers.
Such sensitivities have also made the speakers controversial in South Korea, residents of border villages complaining of noise, as well as the dangers of military skirmishes that explode near their home.
“At night, [North Korea] Play frightening noises like the sound of animals, babies or women who cry, “said one of these residents to President Lee when he visited his village in June, shortly after the two sides interrupted the emissions.” It made me sick. Even sleeping pills did not work.
But it is doubtful that dismantling alone is sufficient for a diplomatic breakthrough.
The relations between Seoul and Pyongyang were in depth after the failure of the summits of denuclearization between Trump and Kim Jong one in 2018, as well as a distinct dialogue between Kim and the president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in.
Tensions increased more during the subsequent conservative administration of Yoon Suk Yeol, who was president of South Korea from 2022 until his duties earlier this year. Yoon is currently under investigation by a special lawyer on allegations that he ordered South Korean military drones to fly over Pyongyang last October.
The legislators of the ruling party allegedly alleged that this decision was aimed at provoking a war with North Korea and, in so doing, guaranteeing the legal justification for the Declaration of Martial Law of Yoon in December.
During Yoon’s mandate, Kim Jong officially planned any reconciliation with Seoul while expanding his nuclear weapon program.
This position remains unchanged even under the more pro-reciliation Lee, according to a declaration by Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of the North Korean leader, published by the KCNA press agency last month.
“No matter how much the Lee Jae Myung government can despair imitate the compatriots and claim that they do all kinds of right things to attract our attention, they cannot put the hands of the History Clock which has radically changed the character of the DPRC-Rok relationships,” she said.
