Balloon row: North Korean defector sends 'smart' balloons back home from South

Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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With a desk strewn with bits of soldering, loose wires and electronic components, Choi's computer screen tracks wind conditions and the GPS location of some unexpected parcels: massive “smart” balloons he floated over North Korea. have sent

From a small apartment in the South Korean capital, Choi, who CNN is identifying under a pseudonym for his privacy and security, is one of the parties to what has become a tit-for-tat balloon dispute between the two Koreas, which The tension is increasing. Korea Peninsula

For years, South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, containing propaganda material critical of dictator Kim Jong Un and USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows. – All these are strictly prohibited in poor, highly isolated nations.

In response, North Korean officials have sent more than 1,000 balloons containing trash, waste and insects to the South since May – fueling tensions as North Korea's leader Kim Yo-jong's powerful sister had warned of “trouble” ahead.

In 2020, South Korea passed a law criminalizing sending anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border as the previous liberal government in Seoul emphasized engagement with Pyongyang.

But many campaigners objected to the decision before it was overturned by a court last year, which called the law an excessive restriction on the free expression of North Korean defectors in the South. In response to the complaint filed by

Choi, co-founder of the North Korean Committee for Reform and Opening, is among North Korean defectors who have vowed to send balloons back to their homeland.

The balloons collected by Choi's group from their Seoul apartment base are a step up from early balloons that randomly scatter their contents when they crash or explode.

Equipped with GPS trackers, workers can monitor these next-generation “smart” balloons in real time as they travel hundreds of kilometers. The group once tracked one of its balloons that it reported headed toward China.

Choi said the group's oblong-shaped balloons are about 12 to 13 meters (about 40 to 42 feet) tall, made of plastic and filled with hydrogen. They carefully chose the thickness of the plastic so that it would withstand the wind and allow some hydrogen to escape naturally, helping to control the balloon's height.

Sensors and small circuit boards attached to the balloons help the balloons travel at a certain height and a certain distance. “If the balloons float above 4,000 meters, the dispenser won't work properly, so we keep an extra bag of leaflets for when it gets too high,” Choi said. is programmed to release hydrogen gas from

“I believe that North Korea can change when the deification of Kim Jong-un is broken, and sending these smart balloons is the way to achieve that goal,” Choi added.

“I am very proud that we have contributed to ending the idol of Kim Jong-un.”

The smart balloons sent by Choi's group carry several different payloads, some of which are automated.

In one version, the balloons contain a small, makeshift loudspeaker that looks like a camping lantern, held in place by zip ties and glue. Attached to a cushion, battery pack and a parachute, it spews out propaganda as it floats to the ground, declaring with a message: “North Korea can only survive if the Workers' Party is abolished.”

Balloons are sometimes fitted with an automatic flyer dispensing device. They can carry up to 1,500 propaganda leaflets – which the dispenser spits out rapidly with the help of a timer and height-adjustable device.

“We devised a method to spread the leaflets over a large area, covering 50 to 300 kilometers (about 31 to 186 miles), collecting all of them for North Korean officials,” Choi said. It became very difficult to do.” “With our system, we can control the leaflets to drop every 300 meters or every kilometer, ensuring that more people can see them.”

These features allow the group to have more control over their equipment than the typical balloons used by other activists. For example, smart balloons are designed to start spitting out leaflets at specific points based on their wind speed and direction, Choi said — ideally allowing them to be distributed to target areas. are They can also control the frequency of leaflet distribution.

While Choi buys some parts for the equipment, he uses 3D printers to make others. Before founding the organization in 2013, he credits his engineering studies at a North Korean university before defecting to the South – and YouTube videos and the rest of his group.

And it's not his full-time job. He works elsewhere during the day, comes to the apartment after work, makes 3D-printed parts, then assembles them for up to six hours a day. Each smart balloon costs about $700 to make, he said.

Choi is encouraged that his family still lives in North Korea, he said. And it has hit back at those in South Korea who have urged the activist groups to stop.

“For those who criticize our activities, it's like saying, 'Let's help maintain the dictatorship in South Korea,'” he said in Seoul before South Korea's transition to democracy in the 1980s. I said referring to decades of dictatorship.

The balloon dispute has seen tensions rise between the two Koreas, which technically remain at war – an armistice ended the Korean War that divided the peninsula in 1953 but never resulted in a formal peace treaty. Not signed.

Relations between the two countries thawed somewhat in 2017 and 2018, allowing some elements of South Korea, including parts of its pop culture, to infiltrate the hermit nation.

But the situation in North Korea worsened in the following years as leader Kim ramped up weapons tests in violation of UN sanctions and diplomatic talks fell apart, reimposing strict rules in North Korea. gone.

Meanwhile, the two countries are getting closer to their respective partners — North Korea recently signed a defense pact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korea has increased cooperation with Japan and the United States.

On Tuesday, after South Korea detected the latest shipment of 350 trash balloons from North Korea, the country's military warned that it could resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts over the border – something it had done in 2018. Haven't done since.

Over the years, Seoul has used giant speakers to blast propaganda and music across the heavily militarized border — including news reports and K-pop group Big Bang's hit song “Bang Bang Bang.”

“Our military is ready to launch anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts immediately and will act flexibly according to the strategic and operational situation,” South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It added that whether it restarts the loudspeakers “depends on North Korea's actions”. ”