Blaring loudspeakers put Koreas on alert
Analyst: North fears South broadcasts hurt troop morale.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — After years of calm — or relative calm, at least — on the heavily militarized border between North and South Korea, both sides were back on alert Friday. The unlikely cause: loudspeakers.
North Korea said Friday morning that its leader, Kim Jong Un, had ordered military units to be ready to attack loudspeakers near the border that the South has used in recent days to blare propaganda messages. Kim gave the South until 5 p.m. today to stop the broadcasts.
Threats from Pyongyang are hardly uncommon, but this one came the day after the North directed artillery fire and what may have been a rocket across the border, according to South Korea, provoking a response from the South. It was the Koreas’ first exchange of fire on such a scale in five years.
On Friday, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea, wearing a camouflage uniform, visited the Third Army Corps south of Seoul and ordered the military to “respond decisively” to any provocations from the North. Her government said it had no intention of stopping the broadcasts, which North Korea said had defiled the “dignity of its supreme leadership” by carrying anti-Kim propaganda.
“North Korea is not enti- tled to talk about dignity,” Vice Defense Minister Baek Seung-joo said Friday at a hearing in parliament.
He cited recent North Korean television broadcasts in which Park was called a prostitute and sol- diers were shown shooting at her image with rifles.
A South Korean analyst who studies the North said Friday that Pyongyang’s threats regarding the loudspeakers reflected high-level anxiety that the broadcasts could hurt the morale of troops near the border.
“The North is desperate to stop loudspeaker broadcasts because they can undermine the morale of front-line North Korean troops and its military’s psychological preparedness,” said Cheong Seongchang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
“Given the North’s sense of crisis and anxiety over the loudspeakers, it is highly possible for the North to attempt a military provocation if the broadcasts continue,” Cheong said.
South Korean officials said Friday that the North had not targeted any of its loudspeaker batteries Thursday, but they said it was clear that the live fire had been intended as a warning to stop using them.
The loudspeakers, which are usually at the top of hills, bombard North Korean soldiers in the so-called Demilitarized Zone (as well as villages nearby) with a steady stream of broadcasts, ranging from South Korean pop music to news that ordinary people in the isolated, totalitarian country would never otherwise hear — such as reports of senior officials in its government being executed for disloyalty to Kim.