On Oct. 1, 2024, then-President Yoon Suk-yeol waves to a crowd whereas accompanied by then-Protection Minister Kim Yong-hyun throughout a navy parade marking Armed Forces Day. (Yonhap)
The administration of disgraced former Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol determined to renew launching propaganda leaflets into North Korea over a 12 months earlier than his disastrous declaration of martial regulation on Dec. 3, 2024, and really carried out these leaflet launches, a probe by the Ministry of Nationwide Protection has confirmed.
“These information had been confirmed by a job drive organized on Dec. 1 on orders from Protection Minister Ahn Gyu-back to look into the Protection Psychological Operation Group,” ministry spokesperson Chung Bin-na mentioned in the course of the day by day press briefing on Wednesday.
Chung’s remarks signify official affirmation, by an inside probe within the navy, of a Hankyoreh report on Dec. 1 that in the course of the Yoon administration, the Protection Psychological Operation Group had been launching balloons carrying propaganda leaflets into North Korea even earlier than the North began lobbing garbage-laden balloons over the border in Could 2024.
Leaflet launches resume after Constitutional Court docket strikes down ban
“We have now determined that the decision-making course of behind the resumption of the leaflet launching operations must be investigated. The Protection Ministry’s workplace of particular investigations plans to launch a full-fledged investigation after receiving the outcomes of the preliminary probe into the psyops unit,” Chung mentioned.
The particular investigations workplace intends to analyze not solely the explanations for the resumption of the leaflet launches but additionally the reference to Yoon’s declaration of martial regulation and unlawful behaviors that occurred in the course of the operations.
“The choice to renew the launch of propaganda leaflets into North Korea was reached by the Nationwide Safety Council in October 2023. Then the Protection Psychological Operation Group carried out at the very least 23 leaflet launches between February to November 2024 aimed toward main North Korean navy bases and cities comparable to Pyongyang and Wonsan,” the workplace of Choo Mi-ae, a lawmaker with the Democratic Social gathering and a member of the Nationwide Meeting’s Laws and Judiciary Committee, disclosed on Wednesday.
The Protection Ministry mentioned it had not too long ago confirmed these information by questioning officers who had been within the chain of command on the time, together with members of the Protection Psychological Operation Group and of the Joint Chiefs of Workers.
Choo’s workplace mentioned that the ministry’s probe had discovered that the Yoon administration as an entire had determined to renew leaflet launches — which had been suspended below the administration of former President Moon Jae-in — on Oct. 12, 2023. Simply weeks earlier, on Sept. 26, 2023, the Constitutional Court docket had struck down a invoice banning leaflet launches (referred to as the “Inter-Korean Relations Growth Act”).
The choice to renew leaflet launches was apparently reached in deliberations between then-Protection Minister Shin Received-sik, Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho and spy chief Kim Kyou-hyun throughout a gathering of the standing committee of the Nationwide Safety Council, which had been convened to “assess South and North Korea’s Complete Army Settlement and take corresponding measures.”
The inter-Korean navy settlement, signed on Sept. 19, 2018, was aimed toward lowering the danger of clashes and acts of hostility between the 2 Koreas.
However Choo mentioned that for the reason that minutes of this assembly are being managed as a presidential file, the Protection Ministry has been unable to verify particulars comparable to the explanations for resuming the leaflet launches.
Joint Chiefs tells unit to not go away a paper path
Shin gave verbal orders for the navy to renew leaflet launch operations on Nov. 8, 2023, and the orders had been delivered to the Protection Psychological Operation Group by way of the Joint Chiefs. The probe discovered that the group subsequently carried out a complete of 23 leaflet launches (on 17 separate events) between Feb. 18 and Nov. 15 of 2024. These launches reportedly focused 35 main navy bases and cities in North Korea, together with Pyongyang and Wonsan.
A coalition of civic teams in Paju calling for peace holds a rally condemning leaflet launches by households of victims of abduction by North Korea at Imjingak, close to the inter-Korean border, on April 23, 2025. (Jung Yong-il/Hankyoreh)
The chain of command for these operations ran from the group commander on the bottom up by the top of the operational planning division on the Joint Chiefs of Workers, the top of operations, and the chairman himself. Throughout this course of, all experiences and authorizations had been made utilizing safe telephones, the probe discovered.
Models within the chain of command deleted all data associated to the leaflet launch operations earlier than month-to-month cybersecurity critiques. Notably, the Joint Chiefs reportedly ordered the models concerned to not hold any data associated to the leaflet launches.
In Could of final 12 months, North Korea started launching garbage-laden balloons into South Korea in retaliation, it claimed, for leaflet launches from the South. The Yoon administration named the rubbish balloons as one in every of its causes for suspending the buffer-creating Complete Army Settlement in June after which resumed propaganda broadcasts on loudspeakers put in alongside the border.
Final month, the particular counsel investigating the revolt indicted Yoon and former Protection Minister Kim Yong-hyun on the cost of treason by finishing up irregular navy operations and making an attempt to impress a navy response from North Korea in order to create the pretext for declaring martial regulation. The particular counsel has additionally recognized October 2023 (when the choice was made to renew leaflet launches into North Korea) because the time when Yoon started severely getting ready for martial regulation.
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, workers reporter
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