South Korea begins removing loudspeakers blaring anti-North Korean messages on border

Photographs shared by the defence ministry show soldiers dismantling the speakers mounted on walls.

Last year, President Yeol restarted blaring propaganda and blasting K-pop music in retaliation for North Korea sending balloons to the South filled with trash.

Since Seoul suspended the use of its loudspeakers in June, Pyongyang reportedly stopped its broadcasts. However, North Korea has expressed that it has no interest in any policy seeking reconciliation with Seoul.

Tensions in recent years

The two countries technically remain at war as the Korean War (1950-53) only ended with an armistice signed, not a treaty.

Their relations between the communist North and democratic South have remained tense over the decades following the war, fueling paranoia and shaping each other’s polities, with the South plunging into coup d’états on two separate occasions.

North Korea had orchestrated the Blue House raid, sending commandos in a bid to assassinate then President of South Korea Park Chung Hee. And last year, right-wing President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, alleging the opposition of collaborating with “North Korean communist forces” to undermine the nation. This misadventure eventually led to his impeachment.

The use of loudspeakers dates back to the Cold War, when both sides used to broadcast propaganda at the Demilitarized Zone along the 38th parallel. It has been a form of psychological warfare meant to shake the morale of enemy soldiers, influencing them to defect.

The speakers were shut down in 2004, when relations were easing. But in 2015, both sides started using them again.

Again, in 2018, then centre-left President Moon Jae-in — from the same party as Myung — dismantled them to prevent military tensions with Pyongyang, which has been sensitive to outside criticism and often considered these moves akin to acts of war.

The same year, a joint liaison was established in the North’s border town of Kaesong to promote inter-Korea relations. But in 2020, North Korea blew up the office soon after it issued fresh threats of military action.