Civic groups to continue sending propaganda leaflets despite N.K. threats

By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Yonhap) -- Two groups representing North Korean defectors and
families of kidnapped South Koreans said Friday they will continue to spread
leaflets into the North denouncing the communist country despite threats from
Pyongyang.
North Korea on Thursday threatened to break all ties with South Korea if civic
groups here continue with the practice.
"We're going to float balloons carrying some 300,000 leaflets bearing the names
of South Korean citizens and prisoners of war (POWs) held in the North on three
separate occasions this month from eastern waters off Gojin, Goseong," said Park
Sang-hak, a defector from North Korea.
Park leads a Seoul-based North Korea defectors group working to help improve
human rights and promote democracy in the North.
He said this month's events will be joined by Choi Song-ryong, head of an
association of families of those kidnapped by North Korea after the 1950-53
Korean War.
"We're going to give North Korean residents tips on how to send information on
kidnapped South Korean civilians and prisoners of war to the South in the
leaflets," Park said.
Thursday's threat, made by an unnamed commentator in North Korea's top newspaper
Rohdong Shinmun, was the strongest in tone and wording from the North in recent
years.
The threat came after Park's and two other defectors' groups floated large-size
balloons loaded with tens of thousands of leaflets critical of the communist
state over North Korea territory last weekend, in defiance of Seoul's plea to
refrain from doing so.
The two Koreas agreed to cease propaganda activities along their heavily armed
border in high-level military talks held in 2004. But South Korean groups have
continued to send anti-North leaflets, some attached with radios to broadcast
into the North.
During their first official meeting with the current Seoul government early this
month, North Korean military officials protested the groups' actions and
threatened to evict South Korean civilians from Kaesong and Mount Geumgang, where
the two Koreas run joint industrial and tourism programs.
Inter-Korean relations have worsened since the conservative South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak took office in late February, breaking from his two
liberal predecessors by adopting a tougher stance toward Pyongyang.
North Korea, in retaliation, cut off dialogue with Seoul and ordered all South
Korean government officials to leave its territory. The North's killing of a
South Korean tourist at Mount Geumgang on the communist state's east coast in
early July further damaged ties. South Korea immediately suspended the
10-year-old tour program.
Pyongyang has yet to take any action beyond the latest threats, while Seoul
officials see little chance the North will abandon its lucrative tourism and
industrial joint ventures in Kaesong.
According to government tallies, there were 79 South Korean manufacturers
operating in the Kaesong complex as of last month, benefiting from the cheap cost
of North Korean land and labor. About 33,000 North Korean workers are employed by
the firms.
During the decades of enmity following the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea
abducted and held a total of 494 South Koreans, mostly fishermen, according to
South Korea's Unification Ministry. Defense Ministry Officials estimate there are
563 South Korean POWs still alive in the North, based on reports from POWs who
escaped the country. Pyongyang, however, denies holding any South Korean
nationals against their will.