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The defectors whose airborne propaganda enraged North Korea
- One is an evangelist with a specially modified three-tonne truck, another is a showman with an alleged propensity for media stunts
- All operate amid rising tensions and debate over whether such leaflets are even the best way to reach out to citizens of the hermit kingdom
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It has been more than a decade since North Korean defector Park Sang-hak began releasing large gas-filled balloons carrying contraband into the sky over the country of his birth.
The 52-year-old is a member of an activist group for defectors calling themselves Fighters for Free North Korea, which carried out 12 such releases last year alone.
In their latest they sent half a million leaflets, 1,000 USB sticks and 50 booklets filled with content deemed subversive by the North for being derogatory to the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
The leaflets describe Kim as a “hypocrite” who piles up private assets while allowing his people to starve and a “butcher” who ordered the assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia in 2017. Also distributed among the bundles were 2,000 US$1 banknotes, which Park said would serve as an incentive for North Koreans to pick them up – despite the risks of getting caught and being punished for doing so.
Park’s brother Jeong-o leads a similar anti-Pyongyang propaganda campaign, though his is seaborne – with plastic bottles containing leaflets and some rice released into the sea near the border, in the hopes that the current carries them north.
Park Chan-kyong is a journalist covering South Korean affairs for the South China Morning Post. He previously worked at the Agence France-Presse's Seoul bureau for 35 years. He studied political science at Korea University and economics at the Yonsei University Graduate School.
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