Civic groups fly anti-N. Korea leaflets against Seoul`s wishes

By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korean civic groups flew balloons carrying tens
of thousands of propaganda leaflets toward North Korea Friday, spurning Seoul's
request not to do so amid tense relations with Pyongyang.

Fighters for Free North Korea, a Seoul-based group of North Korean defectors,
said it sent ten large balloons attached with 100,000 leaflets condemning North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Members dropped the balloons aboard a fishing boat on the western waters just
south of the border with the communist state, according to Park Sang-hak, head of
the group.
"The leaflets contain criticism of the military-oriented politics of the Kim
Jong-il regime and his autocracy, as well as information on democracy," Park told
Yonhap News Agency.
U.S. human rights activist Suzanne Scholte, who is visiting South Korea as winner
of this year's Seoul Peace Prize, took part in the event.
Two other defectors' groups, including "General Association of North Korea
Defectors," said they will fly about 50,000 leaflets each to the communist state
on the same day.
Friday marks the 63rd anniversary of the North Korean Workers' Party.
Seoul had asked the defectors and Christian groups on Wednesday to refrain from
sending propaganda leaflets in an apparent gesture to placate the North.
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 broadcasts
into the North.
North Korea's military officials, during the first official meeting with the
current Seoul government early this month, protested the sending of the leaflets
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, adopting a tougher stance
toward Pyongyang than his two liberal predecessors.
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.
Civic groups here have vowed to continue sending leaflets despite government pleas.
"Frozen inter-Korean relations are the result of our people's anger due to
several incidents, including the shooting death of a Mount Geumgang tourist. They
have nothing to do with anti-North leaflets," Park said.
Park's group has dropped some 1.5 million leaflets in North Korea every year
since 2004, with financial support from Korean-American and U.S. human rights
groups.