hankyoreh

Paju city

In accordance with the birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Families of the Abducted and Detained in North Korea, or FAD, and Fighters for Free North Korea resumed their distribution of leaflets to North Korea on Monday. Along with the leaflets, they also enclosed bills of 5,000 North Korean won that were brought into the country without government approval.

Over 10 members from the two groups assembled at the Imjingak Bridge of Freedom in Paju city, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday morning and loaded two large balloons with thirty 5,000 North Korean won bills and 20,000 leaflets before sending the balloons toward North Korea. They had originally planned to send 420 bills (equivalent to a total of about 800,000 South Korean won) and 100,000 leaflets, but they revised the plan because the direction of the wind was not suitable.

“I made the plan to distribute money along with the leaflets because the thought occurred to me that North Korea was giving presents to its people on Kim Jong-il’s birthday,” said FFNK head Park Sang-hak. “If the direction of the wind changes, we’ll send the rest of the money and leaflets we couldn’t send this time,” Park added.

In response, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said in a briefing Monday that the matter was to be handled through legal measures such as a police investigation. “If one illegally brings in North Korean money and distributes it, an investigation is inevitable,” Kim said. But because this announcement of “legal measures” comes after nothing was done for some two weeks after the two groups brought in the North Korean money and openly declared that fact on Feb. 2, some are commenting that the government may have been deferring to anti-North conservatives.

The Law on Exchanges and Cooperation Between North and South Korea specifies that those who bring North Korean money into the country without authorization may be punished with up to three years of jail time or up to 10 million won in fines, regardless of whether it is distributed. “Because we’re sending money to family members in the North, there is nothing that will be a problem legally,” said FAD head Choi Sung-ryong. Choi also said he would comply with a police investigation.

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