North and South Korea in an underground war

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The border between North and South Korea is immersed in layers of thick thick fence and hundreds of guard functions. But widespread among them is more strange: giant, giant, giant loudspeakers.

When I looked at the north in the afternoon last month, one of the speakers began to detonate the South Korean pop songs, which interspersed with gift messages. “When we travel abroad, we are active,” the woman’s voice has flourished across the border – the light is not allowed to look at the North Koreans to leave the country.

On the North Korean side, I could hear military military propaganda music, as its regime tried to flood inflammatory broadcasts.

North and South Korea is still in war technically, and although years have passed since any of the other sides jumped, the two sides are fighting on a more accurate front: the information war.

The south tries to obtain information in the north, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is trying to narrow it, because he is trying to protect his people from external information.

North Korea is the only country in the world that the Internet has not penetrated. The state runs all TV channels, radio stations and newspapers.

“The reason for this control is that many myths around the Kim family are composed. Many of what they say is lies,” says Martin Williams, an older colleague at the Washington -based Stemphson Center, and an expert in technology and information in North Korea.

Exposing these lies to a sufficient number of people and the system can collapse is how thinking goes into South Korea.

Specific amplifiers are one tool that the South Korean government uses, but behind the scenes, a more advanced underground movement flourished.

A small number of non -profit broadcasters and organizations transfer information to the country in the death of the night on short and medium radio waves, so that the North Koreans can listen to the secret.

Thousands of USB sticks and Micro -SD cards are also smuggled on the border every month loaded with foreign information – among them, South Korean films, TV drama, pop songs, as well as news, all designed to challenge North Korean propaganda.

But now those who work in this field are afraid that North Korea will gain the upper hand.

Not only does Kim break down the foreign content, but the future of this work can be in danger. Many of them are funded by the United States government, and the recent US aid discounts were injured by Donald Trump.

So, where does this leave both sides in the long information war?

Every month, a team in the UMG unification group (UMG), a non -profit organization in South Korea, collects the latest news and entertainment shows to collect the operating lists that they hope to resonate with those in the north.

Then they download it on the devices, which are classified according to the danger of watching them. On low-risk USBS, there is a TV drama from South Korea and pop songs- where the Netflix Romance series recently included the Life Tangerines, hitting a singer and South Korean rapper Jenny.

High-risk options include what the team calls “educational programs”-information to teach North Koreans about democracy and human rights, and it is believed that the content is more afraid.

The drives are then sent to the Chinese border, where the reliable UMG partners carry them across the river to North Korea in great danger.

The South Korean TV drama may seem harmless, but it reveals a lot about normal life there – people who live in high apartments, driving fast cars and eating in high -end restaurants. It highlights both their freedom and how North Korea is late in many years.

This challenges one of the largest manufacture of Kim: that those in the south are poor and miserable persecuted.

“Some people tell us (people) that they cried while watching these dramas, and that they made them think about their dreams for the first time.”

It is difficult to know exactly the number of people who reach USBS, but it seems that certificates of modern horizon indicate that information is spreading and effect.

“The most spelling and refugees in North Korea says it was a foreign content that motivates them to risk their lives to escape,” says Sukil Park, whose organization in North Korea is working to distribute this content.

There is no political opposition or defectors known in North Korea, and the gathering of protest is very dangerous – but Mr. Park hopes that some will be an inspiration to carry out individual resistance acts.

Kang Giuri, 24, North Korea, has grown a fish hunting company. Then in late 2023, she fled to South Korea by boat.

She says watching foreign TV programs partially inspired her to go. “I felt very suffocated, and suddenly I had Use to leave.“

When we met in a garden in the afternoon sunny in Seoul last month, she remembered listening to the radio broadcast with her mother as a child. She got the first d drama when she was ten years old. Years later I learned that USB sticks and SD cards were smuggled into the country inside fruit boxes.

The more I saw, the more I realized that the government was lying to it. “I thought it was natural for the state to restrict us a lot. I thought that other countries lived with this control,” she explained. “But then I realized that he was only in North Korea.”

Everyone who knew almost there is almost television programs and films of South Korea. She and her friends were the USBS exchange.

“We talked about dramas, popular actors, and K-POP idols that we thought were well-looking, like some BTS members.

“We were also talking about how the South Korean economy developed; we could not directly criticize the North Korean regime.”

She adds that the shows also affected how she and her friends and wear her clothes. “North Korea’s youth changed quickly.”

Kim Jong Un, all of this danger to his regime, fights again.

During the epidemic, he built new electric fences along the border with China, making it difficult to smuggle information. New laws were submitted from 2020 increased penalties for persons who are arrested, consuming foreign media. One of them mentioned that those who distribute the content can be imprisoned or executed.

This has a chilling effect. “This media is used to be available for purchase in the markets, people sell it openly, but now you can get it only from the people you trust,” says Mr. Lee.

After starting the campaign, Mrs. Kang became her boyfriend as well. “We are not talking to each other about this anymore, unless we are really close, and until then, we are more confidential,” you admit.

She says she is aware of more young people who are executed for arresting South Korean content.

Recently, Kim recorded the behavior that could be associated with watching the drama of K.

Members of the “Youth Campaign Teams”, in street patrols, are charged with monitoring youth behavior. Ms. Kang remembers that she stops, before her escape, reprimanding her clothes and designing her hair like South Korea.

She adds that the teams will confiscate its phone and read its text messages, to ensure that it has not used any South Korean terms.

In late 2024, the North Korean mobile phone was smuggled by the country by Daily NK, (a Seoul -based media news service).

The phone is programmed so that when the South Korean alternative to the word is inserted, it disappears automatically, and is replaced by North Korea’s rewards – a Orwelly step.

“Smartphones are now an integral part of the way North Korea is trying to enhance people,” says Williams.

After all these repressive measures, North Korea is now believed to have “started getting the upper hand” in this information war.

After Donald Trump returned to the White House earlier this year, the money was cut to a number of relief organizations, including some work to inform the North Koreans. He also suspended the money on two federal, free news services, and the American America (VOA), which was broadcast at night to North Korea.

Trump has accused Voa of “radical” and anti -Trump “, while the White House said this step” will guarantee taxpayers who are no longer on a hook for radical propaganda. ”

But Steve Hermann, the former head of the Seoul -based VOA office, says: “This was one of the very few windows in the world that the North Korean people had, and he was silent without any explanation.”

UMG is still waiting to see if their financing will be cut permanently.

Mr. Park from Liberty in North Korea says that Trump “by the way” gave Kim a helping hand, and he called this “short -sighted” step.

He argues that North Korea, by gathering nuclear weapons, is a major security threat – and that, given the sanctions, diplomacy and military pressure failed to persuade Kim to remove the core from nuclear weapons, and information is the best remaining weapon.

“We are not just trying to contain the threat of North Korea, try to solve it,” he says. “To do this, you need to change the nature of the country.

“If you are an American general, I will say,” How much do these things cost, and in reality this is a good use of our resources. “

The question that remains is, who must finance this work. Some questions why they fell almost completely to the United States.

One solution to South Korea can be equally – but the issue of North Korea is highly politicized here.

The liberal opposition party tends to try to improve relations with Pyongyang, which means that the financing information war is the absence of going. The party’s candidate in the presidential elections indicated next week that he would stop loudspeakers if elected.

However, Mr. Park is still optimistic. “The good thing is that the North Korean government cannot enter the heads of people and the information that is built for years,” he said.

With the development of technologies, it is confident that the spread of information will become easier. “In the long run, I really think this will be the thing that changes North Korea.”

The highest credit image: Getty

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