- Seoul said North Korea sent another 350 balloons laden with garbage to South Korea on Tuesday.
- It's the latest barrage in a back-and-forth psychological battle involving bizarre tactics.
- With South Korean activists in the mix, the last month of conflict has featured choco pies, BTS, and manure.
South Korea's military said on Tuesday that North Korea had sent a fresh wave of 350 balloons carrying bags of waste over the border, with over 100 landing in the Seoul area.
It's the fifth time that Pyongyang has floated trash and scraps into Seoul since it began its launches in late May. According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, an estimated 2,000 garbage balloons have been sent over so far.
They've been integral to a recently escalating series of mind games between Seoul and Pyongyang. Instead of rockets and gunfire, their war has played out in the last month through loud music and balloons floating over the border.
Key to the tit-for-tat psychological war has been North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who launch their own northbound balloons with snacks, pop songs, and anti-Pyongyang leaflets,
Indeed, North Korea blames an influx of propaganda leaflets from the south in May as the impetus for its first wave of dirty balloons.
The South Korean military, unable to stop the activists due to legal protections, has been responding separately — with gigantic loudspeakers on the border blaring news, weather reports, and music toward Kaesong.
The entire affair hearkens back to the Cold War when Pyongyang and Seoul harassed each other with similar balloons and loud songs.
Both sides say it's the other's responsibility to de-escalate, raising questions about how tensions might be resolved and fears that the back-and-forth may spill into open conflict.
Choco pies, K-dramas, and the Bible
One of the first moves that seemed to recently anger Pyongyang came from the activist group Free North Korea Movement, which, according to Seoul Shimbun, sent 20 balloons on May 10 to North Korea carrying 300,000 leaflets and 2,000 USB sticks containing K-pop and trot-style music videos.
North Korea's vice minister of defense, Kim Kang-il, later threatened that South Koreans would receive "vast amounts of toilet paper and waste" because of deliveries like these. The responding deluge of balloons from North Korea, some carrying manure and used toilet paper, seems to have emboldened the activists.
According to Seoul Shimbun, Park Sang-Hak, leader of the Free North Korea Movement, on Friday launched 10 balloons, along with 300,000 leaflets, 5,000 USB sticks containing episodes of Korean dramas, and thousands of $1 bills.
Another activist group told the Korean daily Hankyoreh that it had packed 500 bottles with rice and sent them over to North Korea, along with a copy of the Bible, movies, and TV show episodes.
A photo of the group appears to show them throwing the rice bottles into the sea and toward North Korea from Ganghwa Island, located northwest of Seoul along the border.
At least 10 other defector groups gathered materials this month to send to North Korea. Two groups told the Hankyoreh that they wanted to donate choco pies — a blend of marshmallows and cake that's a popular snack in South Korea.
Though the activists' drops have deeply angered Pyongyang, it's unclear what South Korean authorities can do to control them.
The national government introduced a law in 2020 that criminalized sending propaganda leaflets to North Korea, but it was ruled unconstitutional over free speech concerns and struck down in 2023.
Meanwhile, Park said it's up to North Korea to make peace and that his organization has been sending "facts and truth, love and medicine" to its northern neighbors while Pyongyang has sent over trash.
"If Kim Jong-un apologizes directly within 2 to 3 days, we will also apologize," Park told Seoul Shimbun.
North Korea's response: Mickey Mouse, parasites, and Hello Kitty
North Korea has warned that it would start "intensively distributing toilet paper and waste 100 times the amount and number of cases found" if the propaganda leaflets kept showing up.
It previously said in early June that it would cease its garbage balloon campaign — after sending over about 1,000 of them — as long as the leaflet deliveries stopped.
With the activists appearing to ignore that condition, North Korea's balloon launches resumed.
Seoul's military chiefs told South Korean news agency Yonhap that the contents of the latest balloon-lifted bags weren't toxic. However, authorities analyzing dozens of the drops said some contained filthy, discarded items and even parasites like roundworms.
Several bags were filled with dirty counterfeit clothing featuring Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey Mouse. Others had clothing donated from South Korea that was returned ripped up or cut with scissors, The Korean Herald reported.
South Korean media reported that some of the balloons descended upon cars and residential areas in Seoul, with one vehicle's windshield smashed by the garbage. Police said authorities weren't clear on whether the driver could receive compensation for their damaged car.
South Korea's military: BTS hits and Samsung news
South Korea's leaders have so far responded by resuming the old practice of blasting messages and music to North Korea over the border.
"We will install loudspeakers against North Korea today and carry out the broadcast," a president's office spokesperson said on June 9.
These massive loudspeakers are meant to project sound up to six miles from the border, where the North Korean city of Kaesong is located while keeping disruption minimal for South Koreans.
But Reuters reported on June 17 that the effectiveness of the loudspeakers is being questioned internally, since tests from 2017 show they sometimes only had an effective range of three miles.
Still, national broadcaster KBS reported that the speakers have been broadcasting songs from the popular K-pop group BTS in the hopes that North Korean soldiers and residents might hear the hits.
According to The Associated Press, the loudspeakers have been playing songs like "Butter" and "Dynamite," news on South Korean conglomerate Samsung, and weather reports.
North Korea, for its part, has threatened in the past to destroy the speakers with military strikes.
The use of loudspeakers, like balloons and leaflets, dates back to the Korean War in the 1950s. Both Korean governments agreed in 2018 to stop their broadcasts, promising to dismantle them in a move toward peace.
But the deal, sealed by the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit, appears to be in shambles as the summer begins.
On June 10, a day after it announced the resumption of its broadcast tactics, South Korea said it detected that North Korea had also reinstalled its loudspeakers.