WASHINGTON, DC – South Korea has been sending balloon leaflets referencing the protests in Egypt and Libya over its northern
border as part of a campaign to get North Koreans “to think about change.”
Food, medicines and radios were
also secured in light-weight baskets to the balloon leaflets, Reuters
reported. The
effort has been met by firm resistance by Pyongyang.
On Sunday, the North Korea state-run
news agency has issued a statement saying “that it will ‘launch direct,
targeted firing attacks’ at any area where activists or military members
are seen releasing the balloons,” the Washington Post reports. Post reporter Chico Harlan
quotes from a recently released report by economists Marcus Noland and
Stephan Haggard about the likelihood of the regime “unraveling”:
“There are reasons
to doubt that a dramatic political unraveling will occur in North Korea
any time soon….The regime has aggressively forestalled independent
forms of social organization….There are no independent unions,
autonomous religious organizations, or forums of intellectuals, all of
which have served as platforms for organizing dissent in countries that
have democratized in recent decades.”
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