South Korea’s military on Sunday conducted propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts near the border with North Korea in response to the North’s recent launch of balloons carrying trash into the South.

The broadcasts took place in the afternoon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, without providing further details, such as the exact time it was carried out and the kind of equipment that was used, because it was a military operation.

It marked the first anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts near the heavily fortified border since January 2016, when the South Korean military resumed its loudspeaker campaign in retaliation for North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.

A military official said earlier it would broadcast the “Voice of Freedom,” a radio program run by the defense ministry’s psychological warfare unit.

“Whether there will be additional broadcasts of our military’s loudspeakers depends entirely on North Korea’s actions,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters. “We strongly urge (the North) to immedi
ately stop its despicable acts, such as the launches of waste balloons.”

Since May 28, the North has launched the balloons toward the South, describing it as a “tit-for-tat” response to anti-Pyongyang leafleting by activists in South Korea.

Upon the decision by the presidential National Security Council to restart the loudspeaker broadcasts, the military reportedly operated several of the fixed loudspeakers installed in the front-line region for two hours from 5 p.m.

Although the military withheld disclosing the content of the broadcasts, the broadcasts echoed around the border region in the South, as confirmed by Yonhap News Agency.

The broadcast began at 4:55 p.m. with news about South Korea’s suspension of the 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction pact following presidential approval, explaining why South Korea came up with the decision to resume the loudspeaker broadcasts to the North.

It delivered the news that South Korea, the United States and Japan strongly condemned North Korea’s continue
d missile provocations and growing military cooperation with Russia at a regular council meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It also introduced that Samsung Electronics came first in smartphone shipments out of 38 countries around the world.

After the 30-minute news broadcast, the loudspeakers blasted weather updates for North Korean regions and price trends in North Korean markets.

The resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts came as North Korea launched some 330 balloons late Saturday and early Sunday, but only around 80 of them landed in the country. It sent nearly 1,000 trash-carrying balloons into the South late last month and early last week.

For years, North Korean defectors in the South and conservative activists have sent leaflets to the North via balloons to help encourage North Koreans to eventually rise up against the Pyongyang regime.

North Korea has bristled at the propaganda campaign amid concern that an influx of outside information could pose a threat to its leader Kim Jong-un
.

The speakers are designed to blare the audio 24 kilometers into the North during the night, according to the South’s military. During the week, it can reach as far as the border city of Kaesong, about 10 km north of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

Source: Yonhap News Agency