State censorship won’t keep North Koreans from learning about the civil resistance in North Africa and the Middle East. Thousands of helium balloons will be soon released over the Korean border with information about the uprisings that toppled the Tunisian and Egyptian governments.

With selected news drip-fed to its citizens via the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) – which has not reported the citizen rebellions in Northern Africa – and extremely restricted internet access, most North Koreans would be unaware of what’s been happening. “The [North Korean Communist] party has to be very, very careful to block what is happening in Africa. They are very sensitive nowadays,” says Ki-Sung Kwak at the University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.

After North Korea attacked Yeonpyeong Island in November 2010, killing four people, the South Korean government and private activists floated more than 3 million leaflets in helium balloons across the border.

Rage against the regime

Each balloon, which scattered its cargo upon bursting, contained thousands of leaflets describing the news, criticising the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and encouraging people to rise against the regime. According to the South Korean daily newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, starting this month, the balloons will also provide toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, underwear, basic medicine and information on the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. “The balloons are so powerful and it is probably the best way to disseminate information through North Korea,” says Kwak.


Hyunga Kim, a Korean studies researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, says it’s unlikely the balloons will lead to uprisings in North Korea. The citizens are starving and too weak to consider a revolution, she says.

Still, the balloons are making North Korea’s officials nervous. In a statement, carried by the KCNA, a North Korean military official described ballooning as “psychological warfare” and threatened to attack South Korea if their release continued.