Defector balloons into North Korea denouncing attack on Yeonpyeong

A group of North Korean defectors flew propaganda leaflets toward the North on Saturday denouncing the communist state’s attack on Yeonpyeong island last month, as tensions spiked over a planned South Korean live-fire drill.

Several activists from North Korean defectors’ organizations, including the Seoul-based Fighters for Free North Korea, sent 10 balloons from Yeonpyeong that carried about 200,000 leaflets critical of the North Korean attack and its regime. The balloons also contained 500 CDs that hold the footage of the shelling and, in a bid to encourage North Korean citizens to pick them up, 1,000 $1 bills.

North Korea finds such propaganda fliers highly provocative and has repeatedly condemned the South Korean government for failing to prohibit such activities.

“While the (South Korean) people’s anxiety had yet to subside after the Cheonan incident, North Korea indiscriminately bombarded South Korean territory again,” Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and head of Fighters for Free North Korea, said, referring to the March sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack. “We flew the leaflets in order to tell the North Korean people of this provocative behavior.”

The leaflets carry such messages as “Let’s bring down the third-generation hereditary succession” or “Rise up, North Korean compatriots,” Park said.