Nongovernmental organizations should think about using not only balloons, but also drones to send leaflets of outside information into North Korea, the institute run by former U.S. President George W. Bush said.
It was one of the recommendations that the George W. Bush Institute suggested to break down North Korea's information barriers, as it issued the "Light through the Darkness" report, calling for improvement in the North's human rights situation.
The report called for the NGO community as well as governments to work with Silicon Valley to find and implement innovative ways to pierce the North Korean regime's information monopoly, such as "advancing the balloon drop injections of information into North Korea, perhaps through use of drones."
North Korean defectors and other anti-Pyongyang activists in South Korea have used large balloons to send propaganda leaflets across the border in an effort to provide North Korean people with outside information and let them know how bad their leaders are.
Pyongyang, which fears outside information would weaken the personality cult surrounding its leader, has reacted angrily to the leaflet campaign, even opening fire near the heavily armed border last year in an attempt to shoot down balloons.
The Bush institute put forward other suggestions under four main goals: raising global awareness of the North's human rights situation; supporting and empowering refugees; making the issue a priority for governments; and breaking the North's information barriers.
The report called on the U.S. government to integrate human rights into mainstream diplomacy in the six-party nuclear talks or the bilateral agenda with the North and to put pressure on Pyongyang by imposing sanctions specific to human rights abuses and considering putting the regime back to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"Satellite images of the Korean Peninsula show a startling contrast between the North and the South. While South Korea is alive with light, North Korea is shrouded in darkness. Just as stark is the contrast in human freedom," Bush said in a video message released along with the report.
While South Koreans live in a free and prosperous society, Bush said, 24 million North Korean people across the border "suffer tyranny, deprivation under brutal rule," adding that torture and political prison camps are "routinely used to keep the population in line."
Referring to last year's landmark U.N. report on the North's human rights record, Bush called for the world, especially those blessed to live in free societies, to do more to improve the human condition in the totalitarian nation.
"We can do more to support and empower refugees, break down information barriers within North Korea, and make human rights a priority for all governments. Please join me in standing with the people of North Korea," he said. (Yonhap)
