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President Yoon Suk-yeol, first lady Kim Keon-hee and others return to their seats after paying their respects at a ceremony held at Seoul National Cemetary on June 6, 2024, Korea’s Memorial Day. (Yonhap)

Four days after North Korea proclaimed that it would retaliate a “hundred times the amount" to propaganda leaflets being floated across the border, an organization for North Korean defectors has sent another 200,000 leaflets across the DMZ, pushing inter-Korean relations closer to the brink. 

The Ministry of Unification has once again cited the right to “freedom of expression” to rationalize its policy of allowing private citizens to float leaflets to the North. 

“The land north of the Military Demarcation Line remains the darkest in the world,” President Yoon Suk-yeol remarked in his Memorial Day address, vowing to transform North Korea through “strength” for a “unified Republic of Korea.” 

Such comments add to concerns that the risk of military conflict between the two Koreas is on the rise. 

Park Sang-hak, the head of the defector group Fighters for a Free North Korea, stated that his group had floated 10 balloons carrying 200,000 leaflets condemning North Korea and Kim Jong-un’s rhetoric between 12 am and 1 am on Thursday. Sent northward from Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, the balloons also reportedly contained 5,000 memory sticks containing popular songs and TV series as well as 2,000 US $1 bills. 

Park stated that he and his group were not stopped by police while they were sending the balloons, adding that “We will continue to float balloons to North Korea as long as Kim Jong-un does not apologize.” 

“Some of the balloons released by Fighters for a Free North Korea flew over the border to North Korea,” a military source stated. 

In a statement published on Sunday night by Kim Kang-il, North Korea’s vice minister of national defense, Kim warned: “If the ROK clans resume anti-DPRK leaflet scattering, [North Korea] will correspond to it by intensively scattering waste paper and rubbish a hundred times the amount of scattered leaflets and the number of cases.” 

The Ministry of Unification commented that, in response to the leaflet issue, it is “taking into account the spirit of the Constitutional Court’s decision made in September 2023 that proclaimed the sending of leaflets as a part of freedom of expression,” adding that it is “doing its best to manage the situation.” 

However, an official from the ministry reiterated the government's policy of not asking the group to refrain from sending leaflets. On May 10, Park also sent 300,000 leaflets to North Korea and since then, the two Koreas have been at loggerheads over who is responsible for the current conflict involving trash-filled balloons and anti-North Korea leaflets. 

The president touched on the subject during his address for Memorial Day held at Seoul National Cemetary on Thursday.   

“North Korea — after firing artillery shells into the West Sea and launching missiles — recently carried out a despicable provocation that would make any normal country ashamed of itself,” Yoon said. “The government will never overlook the threat from North Korea. We will maintain an ironclad readiness posture and respond to provocations resolutely and overwhelmingly.” 

“The Republic of Korea has now become the brightest country in the world, while the land north of the Military Demarcation Line remains the darkest in the world,” he went on. “Peace is maintained through strength, not through submission. We can transform North Korea only if we grow stronger.” 

He also added that we would only be able to “move forward toward a free, prosperous and unified Republic of Korea if we become stronger.” 

Yoon’s use of the phrase “unified Republic of Korea” is expected to be controversial, as it could bring to mind “reunification by absorption,” a policy that the government officially denies. 

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer; Lee Seung-jun, staff reporter 

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