Seoul: North Korean defectors launched 100,000 leaflets across the tense inter-Korean border urging the toppling of the communist regime to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.
About 10 members of the Fighters for Free North Korea floated the messages on Saturday, slung under five large gas-filled balloons.
The giant balloons were inscribed with anti-Pyongyang slogans including one calling for the overthrow of leader Kim Jong-Il and his youngest son Kim Jong-Un`s "hereditary dictatorship."
"Remember the Korean War," another slogan read in reference to the three-year war that began with an all-out attack on the South on June 25, 1950.
Timing devices were attached to scatter the bundles of leaflets north of the heavily fortified border.
"Brothers, rise up!. Fight bravely... and finish the three-generation dictatorship," the leaflet said.
The balloons also carried hundreds of DVDs and one-dollar bills, an incentive for North Koreans to overcome fears of punishment and pick up the leaflets.
Anti-Pyongyang activists, mostly defectors from the North, have been sending leaflets by balloons across the border for a number of years, an act condemned as a psychological warfare by angry Pyongyang.
The North`s military has threatened "merciless retaliations" against such launches, vowing to open fire at any place and at any time to halt what it calls a smear campaign.
Bureau Report
