Text Fwd: South to inform NK people of Mideast protests

* While the Key Resolve US-SK joint military exercise against NK will be from Feb. 28 to March 10 (Foal Eagle is from Feb. 28 to April 30), this kind of South Korean right wing Lee Myung-Bak government's activity will more freeze the inter-Korean relationship.

Korea Times
South to inform NK people of Mideast protests
By Kim Young-jin
02-25-2011 16:56

The Lee Myung-bak administration has been dropping pamphlets into North Korea about popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East along with food and other items as part of a stepped-up psychological warfare campaign, a minor opposition lawmaker said Friday.

Rep. Song Young-sun of the Future Hope Alliance, who received the information from a Defense Ministry report, said the campaign intends to encourage North Koreans to think about change and shed critical light on the power succession underway from leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son. The ministry has yet to confirm the move.

If confirmed, it would mark the first time the military has dropped goods into the North since the practice was discontinued in 2000.

Food and everyday items such as toothpaste, warm clothes and cold medication are being sent in balloons with baskets timed to open over target areas, the lawmaker said in a statement.

The food comes with a message that reads: “We are the military of the Republic of Korea. This food is safe to eat. If in doubt, feel free to try feeding this to your livestock before eating it yourself.”

The military has stepped up psychological tactics in the wake of the North’s Nov. 24 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, Song said.

But the campaign hit high gear amid the Mideast turmoil, dropping 2.4 million leaflets carrying news of the revolts in Egypt and Libya since early February.

The leaflets associate leader Kim and heir apparent Kim Jong-un with the dictatorships of Egypt and Libya, saying such regimes are doomed to fail.

Radio Free Asia reported that the regime is beefing up surveillance in a bid to prevent news of the Mideast uprisings from seeping in.

Citing North Korean sources, the report said landlines and mobile phones of non-elite citizens are being jammed, while additional forces have been deployed to markets to prevent the news from spreading by word-of-mouth. Monitoring of university campuses has been bolstered as well.

Tensions between the two Koreas soared to their worst point in decades last year after the North sank a South Korean warship in March and shelled Yeonpyeong eight months later. Both sides have expressed desire to ease tensions but their first talks since the incidents collapsed without any agreement.

Korea Times intern Joy J. Han contributed to this article

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See also Yonhap News
(Yonhap Interview) N. Korea will try to block Mideast influence: S. Korean minister
2011/02/23 07:41 KST
By Sam Kim