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Friday, May 2, 2008      East-Asia-Intel.com

Villages north of the Korean DMZ get hope, food via balloons from the South

SEOUL — About a year and a half ago villagers in a town north of the DMZ near the east coast of North Korea began to find balloons in the mountains that they figured had flown over the border from the South.

The balloons carried gas lighters, ballpoint pens, batteries and other items. They were welcomed as gifts in the remote mountain village where such goods, taken for granted elsewhere, are hard to come by.

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Two helium balloons containing some 60,000 leaflets condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, are launched by North Korean defectors in Ganghwa, northwest of Seoul, on April 19.       AP / Lee Jin-man
Since that time, the villagers have made a ritual of exploring the mountain in hopes of finding more bonanzas.

“Miraculously, we could find some more balloons only when the first supply was about to used up,” one villager told a traveler who reported the information to a defector group outside the country.

“We learned by listening to South Korean broadcasting on transistor radios also supplied by the balloons and operated by South Korean batteries that those balloons were regularly sent by civilian organizations in South Korea,” the villager was quoted as saying.

Some of the more daring villagers would venture farther down to the coast, joining fishermen and party officials in gathering rubber bags that floated their way from South Korea.

“The bags contain foodstuff like ramen [instant noodles], rice and 'choco pie’ cookies,” said a villager. “They were like god-sends.” Villagers said that as the news got around, even party officials and security people began asking fishermen to take them out so they could collect the floating bags.

“Unlike inland or in the northern border area there are fewer checkpoints here,” said a villager, “so the officials collect them and take them to markets.”

When the South Korean NGOs first sent the balloons a few years ago, North Korean villagers reported them to authorities, who put out propaganda that South Koreans and U.S. "Yankees" had put poison in the items things and in the food.

“Nobody is fooled by that nonsense any more,” a villager said.



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