Groups scuffle with protesters as they send leaflets into N. Korea

By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korean groups sent propaganda leaflets critical of North Korea over the strictly controlled Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday as they scuffled with liberal activists who desperately tried to stop the launch.

The groups sent off a large balloon carrying 10,000 leaflets at a spot near the
west coast, a day after North Korea tightened border traffic with South Korea in
an initial retaliatory step against Seoul's hardline policy toward Pyongyang.
The groups had prepared ten balloons to carry 100,000 leaflets but managed to
send just one after clashing with dozens of liberal activists looking to prevent
further damage to inter-Korean relations. The opposing members stole the
remaining leaflets from a truck parked nearby.
One activist was hospitalized and another was taken into police custody,
according to police officials.
Rarely seen since the Cold War, leaflets have recently emerged as a divisive
issue between the two Koreas. Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have worsened
since the launch of conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in
February.
Lee has shown reluctance to carry out agreements signed by his two liberal
predecessors and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The most recent summit
agreement, signed in 2007, includes a slew of cross-border economic projects that
would require massive South Korean investment in the impoverished communist
state.
North Korea has repeatedly threatened to cut all ties with Seoul if it fails to
stop the conservative activists from sending the leaflets. Seoul also asked them
to stop in order not to further enrage the North.
Pyongyang has mobilized soldiers en mass in a campaign to collect leaflets that
have fallen on western coastal towns near the border, Washington-based Radio Free
Asia reported earlier in the day, citing Chinese sources well-informed on North
Korea.
Experts say the leaflets have struck a nerve because they often contain
information on the 66-year-old Kim's reported health problems, of which most
North Koreans are likely unaware.
South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have said the North Korean leader
suffered a stroke in the middle of August. North Korea has vehemently denied the
reports.
Many of the leaflets have repeatedly criticized Kim for enjoying a lavish life
while his people suffering from chronic food shortages, and urge North Koreans to
rise up against the "killer whose death is approaching."
The leaflets sometimes are mixed with U.S. dollar bills or Chinese yuan notes to
entice North Koreans to pick them up. In the impoverished nation, one can live a
month on one dollar, according to Park Sang-hak, a North Korea defector whose
group has been sending the leaflets for about four years.
The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to halt propaganda warfare, which had involved
floating leaflets and blasting loud speakers across the heavily armed border.
South Korean activists, mostly defectors from North Korea and families of South
Korean fishermen abducted by the North, however, have kept sending the leaflets.
"We also don't want an end to inter-Korean relations but just want to confirm
whether our families kidnapped by the North are alive or not," Choi Song-ryong,
head of an association of families of those kidnapped by North Korea. "We will
not stop scattering anti-Pyongyang leaflets until the issue of kidnapped South
Koreans is settled," he stressed.
Seoul estimates a total of 494 South Korean citizens, mostly fishermen, have been
abducted and held against their will since the 1950-53 Korean War, and that there
are about 540 South Korean prisoners of war still alive in the North. Pyongyang
denies holding any South Korean nationals against their will.