Southern activists to send anti-Kim leaflets to North

Anti-Pyongyang activists in South Korea said Tuesday they would float leaflets denouncing North Korea’s late leader Kim Jong-Il across the tense border.

The North Korean defectors and other activists will on Wednesday launch balloons carrying 200,000 leaflets lambasting the ruling Kim dynasty, Park Sang-hak, one of their leaders, told AFP.

Park and others have regularly sent leaflets calling for the ousting of the Kim regime, sparking anger from Pyongyang.

The reclusive communist state, which tightly controls news from outside, has in the past threatened to fire across the heavily fortified border to stop the leaflet launches.

Pyongyang announced Monday that Kim had died Saturday of a heart attack at the age of 69 and urged its people to rally behind his youngest son, calling him “the great successor”.

“Kim’s death is such a joy and source of hope for all compatriots in the South and the North who value freedom and human rights,” Park said.

“This is a great opportunity to enlighten people in the North,” he said, adding the balloons would be launched from the South’s border town of Paju.

The leaflets describe the late Kim as “a traitor who drove people into starvation” and criticize the third-generation power succession to Kim Jong-un, Yonhap news agency reported.

The North’s state media reported scenes of “indescribable sorrow” after Kim’s death, showing images of hundreds of people weeping on the streets and in front of Kim’s photos.

But online media run by defectors in Seoul reported a tense atmosphere, with troops and military police forcing people to stay home and banning meetings of more than five people in some places. 

(AFP)