hankyoreh

Government-related organizations including the Ministry of Unification, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of National Defense, National Police Agency and National Intelligence Service held a formal policy meeting the day before yesterday to come up with a plan for preventing the distribution of leaflets calling for the overthrow of the North Korean system. The following day, the private groups responsible for the distribution openly sent off another large batch of leaflets to North Korea. This is the fourth such case in a little over a month.

Nothing can be gained from this distribution of leaflets. Contrary to the belief of the groups leading this effort, including the Abductees’ Family Union, this distribution only makes it more difficult to solve the problem of abductions to North Korea. To solve this problem, there must be a considerable degree of trust between North and South Korea, and these leaflet distributions only breed hostility. As the leaflets even contain lists of abductees, the individuals in question may suffer harm in North Korea. On the other hand, the price of these efforts is great. They could go beyond the deterioration of inter-Korean relations and bring about a military conflict if one of the hydrogen balloons carrying the leaflets should explode.

As the Unification Ministry specified in an official notice to the groups in question, their activities go against the spirit of mutual agreement between North and South, in which both nations are supposed to abstain from acts of slander and defamation and the distribution of leaflets. South Korean companies residing in the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex have also made numerous requests to the government for specific measures to halt these leaflet distributions. The leaflets are essentially acts of provocation, telling people to pursue an overthrow of the North Korean system, and they invalidate all existing inter-Korean relations. If these acts continue, not only will the relationship of coexistence and co-prosperity spoken of by the government end as empty words, a Cold War-style hostile structure of confrontation could reemerge.

In spite of this, the government’s response has been passive. Even the results of the policy meeting amounted to little more than the strengthening of persuasion. Sufficient persuasion is certainly needed, but it must not stop there. It is irresponsible for them to effectively allow it to happen, in deference to the feelings of some conservatives, even as they know the dangers of these leaflet distributions. If a progressive unification movement group were to send a balloon to the North with leaflets, the government would certainly stop it. Is it not the same government where the president has attempted to incite a controversy over illegality and warned of strict application of the law even when the strike that the labor unions declared they would carry out was legal?

The more important thing is a thoroughgoing shift in policy toward North Korea. The main reason that these leaflet distributions, which have been taking place continuously for several years, have risen up now as a major issue is because inter-Korean relations have been blocked since the launching of the Lee Myung-bak administration. Thus, if they intend to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, they must attempt to properly grasp the major trends in South-North relations. The starting point for this is making clear their intention of implementing the terms of the October 4 and June 15 declarations in no uncertain terms. In this regard, the issue of leaflet distribution is also a test of the administration’s North Korea policy and a chance to realize a shift in that policy.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]