North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Eric Foley: Why it’s better to launch balloons into North Korea under the radar

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

North Korea launched balloons toward the South for a third consecutive day on Wednesday, bringing the total number of launches to seven since May as the DPRK continues to retaliate against anti-regime leafleting by ROK activists. Pastor Eric Foley of the Voice of the Martyrs Korea, an NGO that regularly sends Bibles to the North […]

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I'm your host and this episode was recorded on Wednesday, the 12th of June, 2024. Joining me here in the NK News Studio today is Eric Foley of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, who sends balloons to North Korea with Bibles in them or under them. And we're gonna talk about that. As we did actually almost four years ago, you were last on the program, Eric, on 28th of July, 2020, episode 139. So yeah, it's almost four years ago.

Much has happened since then. And then we're obviously talking with you in the context of North and South Korea, or balloons being sent of North and South Korea or balloons being sent from North and South Korea across the demilitarized zone at each other. Let's start with what your organization, Voice of the Martyrs Korea, does. What does it do in relation to North Korea? Well, the Voice of the Martyrs Korea works in partnership with underground North Korean Christians and the nature of our

work is to do whatever it is that they ask us to do which is to support them in their work of spreading the Christian message inside North Korea and to North Koreans wherever they're found. How many of these underground North Korean Christians do you believe there to be? Good estimate would be a hundred thousand of which 30,000 would be in concentration camps. You'll hear estimates as high as two million from some groups, but in our view, that's quite on the high end.

And how do you communicate with them? Or how do they communicate with you? Well, the communication process is related to where the individuals happen to be. North Korean Christians are found in many places around the world, not only inside North Korea, but also China, Russia, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, North Africa, even South America.

And so the North Korean Christians have their own methods of communication of both how to share information externally and how they communicate inside North Korea. So we make use of all of those methods and try to talk as little as possible about any of them in specific. Okay, and so you're sending balloons to North Korea that contain Bible tracts.

We don't actually comment on our own field operations about what we are, or not doing at any point in time. What I'll say is this, is that every year using all of the methods that are at our disposal, we bring 40,000 Bibles into North Korea. So you could say land, sea, air, and then also we do radio broadcasting, four radio broadcasts a day. But balloons have historically been one of those methods. And every day we make the decision of how we're going to do what we do based

upon the circumstances of what's happening here, what's happening in North Korea and what seemed like the best options for us at that time. Now let's talk about the anti-leafleting law in South Korea that went into effect in March 2021. So that was after I last interviewed you for the podcast. How did that law affect you and your group's activities? Comparatively little. I think really you'd have to go back to right at the time that we we met last time, Jacko, in June 2020. That was the point of great tension between North and South Korea, North Korea making very open and explicit statements to say that South Korea had to halt all launches.

And of course, And these are not just referring to you, but also other groups. Absolutely. Yeah, sure. Because there are a number of civic, I don't know how many, but let's say there were about 10 civic groups in South Korea that send materials through aerial means into North Korea. Some of them are religious and have religious messages, and some of them are political. Would that be fair to say?

Yeah, I think that's true. And actually, I would classify most are actually both. That is, they do a combination of both political and religious messages. And entertainment too, right? I mean, there's a fair amount of entertainment materials. K-pop, K-drama, things like that, that other people do. We're not.

I mean, all we do is Bibles. But in that summer of 2020, there was an immediate, I would say, sudden and comprehensive effort on the part of municipalities along the border region to use existing laws related to litter, noise control, transportation of gas. Obviously to send balloons you need what gas is normally used? Some groups use hydrogen. We don't. When we've done balloon launches we use helium. Hydrogen being flammable and a real concern being the safety of where we're launching from and where we're launching to. But in the summer of 2020, essentially, launches were, a strong

effort was made to halt launches at every level. And so that would be police, military, and intelligence services. And even at that time, groups of college students were hired to travel along throughout the border areas and the areas known to be frequented by launchers in order to identify where launches were taking place in an effort to interdict them. So that extended from the summertime on through the, the, the period where balloons are normally launched, which basically usually ends in the fall. So that's because of weather conditions, right?

You might get about 15 to 20 nights a year where it's possible to launch balloons from that few of Korea Yeah, it's actually a lot fewer than one would guess reports of the news It seems that there are a lot of a lot more nights on which balloons are in fact launch correct than 15 20 Yeah, some groups for some groups. There's really two aspects of balloon launching. One is the attempt to get materials into North Korea. The other is the political theater that's involved in the balloon launching process. And groups will weight that differently. They'll put different elements of emphasis on those things. So some groups will launch on holidays because those are particularly

meaningful or symbolic occasions, but they really have nothing to do with the direction of the winds at that time. But let me drill down on the 15 to 29 so you think where do you get that from, that number? Well when you do balloon launching you have to be able to have good meteorological data to do the work if what your goal is is to get materials into North Korea. It's a lot more complex than it seems because you're really not looking at just surface level winds. Depending upon the kind of balloon that you're using, you're really looking at meteorological conditions at all altitudes. You have to factor in a lot of different issues ranging from the weight of the material, the type

of gas you're using, where you're launching from, where the intended or broad target area may be. But for all intents and purposes really, looking across all of the different types of balloons, it's still a very small number of days where the winds are suitable to go from South to North to get materials into North Korea. That's why even the other night when the JCS was commenting on the launch by Pak Sang-Hak, their comment was some of those balloons may have entered into North Korea. For the most part those groups will tell you that often the balloons don't reach North Korea or they reach North Korea in such small numbers that you have to look and account for the response from North Korea to be related to something more than the actual materials that wind up there

Can you say more about that? Yeah, sure so so North Korea may not only be responding to the actual number of Materials that end up on the ground in North Korea because for most launchers the ones that are often most public That you'll see in the media the most The the types of materials that they're launching don't tend to be very effective at reaching North Korea. So you're talking about actually physically reaching North Korea? Yeah, so there is, I think it's important to distinguish between the actual

physical process of launching materials into North Korea and the reasons for doing that and the political motivations for doing that kind of launching materials into North Korea and the reasons for doing that and the political motivations for doing that kind of launching so for some groups the ones that are the the groups that most people hear about because an important part of what they do is to end up in the media to promote their viewpoints and and their reasons for launching to share what it is they're launching why they're launching it how many they're launching. And so often those reports, those media reports portray a level of effectiveness that those groups don't reach. Why does the media do that? That's my question for you, Jacko. I think balloons are incredibly symbolic. Even now today, I think people tend to underrate

the technical capacity of balloons to do actual important work. You saw that last year, maybe it was two years ago, when China floated a balloon over North America. And in many ways, people responded to it as if it were a joke. I mean, why would you be using such outdated technology? But balloons can be very effective at certain tasks,

but they also possess a symbolic value that goes beyond their their technical effectiveness. And so that's what makes balloon launching so vexing to analyze as a subject is North Korea, South Korea responding to actual to analyze as a subject is North Korea, South Korea responding to actual materials that have been received or are they responding to the overall perception or value that's created through the public elements of what balloon launchers do. Now coming back to 2020, were you or your organization prosecuted for sending leaflets to North Korea? I was charged under existing municipal ordinances. Okay, so you were not charged under the anti-lethaling law

that went into effect in March 2021. Correct. But previously existing ordinances. Correct, and to my knowledge, that is the case for most of the launchers who were impacted in that time period. The March 2021 law, it wasn't even a formalization of the enforcement

that had come before. It was really a new approach to thinking about how balloon activities would be treated. And it centralized the responsibilities for addressing balloon launches with the Ministry of Unification. And that was really new. You know, the Ministry of Unification had appeared here

and there over the years as factors in balloon launches, but essentially enforcement had been done by three groups, right, municipal police, local police, in the areas around the border region, the military, and the intelligence services. All of those groups were frequent attendees at the launches of various groups like ours. Right and they have enforcement arms and tools. I don't think the ministry of unification has

that kind of enforcement power. Yeah I think the there was the 2021 law probably raised more questions for launchers than it answered. It attempted to say that launches had to be pre-approved and materials had to be vetted. When you say the materials, you mean the contents that's being sent. Yeah. And of course, it was broader than just dealing with balloons or leaflets. I mean, it was really any movement related to the North that covered not only even printed materials, but electronic materials as well. Okay. But that's off a piece with, I guess, that's been in place for decades, right? I mean, if a South Korean talks to a North Korean or if a South Korean has a phone call

with a North Korean or if a South Korean meets a North Korean in a third country or if a South Korean sends an email to a North Korean, that also has to be pre-approved and vetted. Yeah, I think one of the public misperceptions that happened beginning in 2020 was that up until that time that balloon launchers had a relatively free hand and were unrestricted in their activities and that simply was not true you know our involvement in balloon launching is extended now more than two decades and during that point in time I can't recall a single time where there was not involvement on the part of those groups that I mentioned previously.

Police, military and intelligence. Yeah. And so the, all of those groups were enforcing existing ordinances to the best of their understanding. So of course we had this, this kind of, um, omnibus national security law, which made it so that anytime things were perceived to be dangerous the government through various channels could intervene with launchers and attempt to halt launching for some period of time. So in 2020 what

was portrayed to the public was that balloon launchers were you know traipsing through people's gardens and launching with impunity and having very little consequences for the the work that we were doing. Well and creating security security security risks for the people who live in the neighborhoods given that North Korea threatened to to shell those areas that had been launch areas launch sites. At that time when you and I talked last time one of the things that I talked about was the importance of distinguishing between launchers the materials that are used,

the motivations for the launch, and I still think that those are important distinctions to make today. I think that law enforcement related to balloon launching should be welcomed by all launchers. I think questions of safety are extremely important and are best addressed at the level of municipalities. So you don't, when you or your group does a launch, you're not trying to hide from the police or shake them off? Not at all, no, no. And I think that the, but one distinction I would make also

is that there are groups who, when they do a launch, an important part, according to how they see the purpose of the launch, is to invite the media, share photos and so forth. That raises in my opinion, real questions regarding if not the motivation of the launch, the advisability or wisdom of it. Reason why is that any time that you release photos

that show what you're launching, where you launched from, and you tell the time that you launched and the number of balloons that you're launching, where you launched from, and you tell the time that you launched and the number of balloons that you're launching, you're essentially providing a roadmap to the North Korean government to very quickly identify where those balloons went and to very knowledgeably look for the materials among their citizens that you claim to have launched. That in my view is troublesome. That's problematic if the goal is to provide North Korean citizens with unmediated information, a view of the world that's not controlled by their government. If that's the case, then the best launch is the launch

that goes undetected. So in your case, in the case of your group, Voice of the the martyrs Korea You're more likely to invite the police to come and watch and not invite the media not in the opposite of the other group Yeah for more than two decades. We've had really good relationships with the groups who have been involved in in enforcement and And gained a lot of respect from those groups because of how we do what we do. And again, I don't say this commenting on what we are or are not presently doing, but I would say this is that launchers have to make a choice on the type of gas they're going to use. Hydrogen, which is cheap and flammable, or helium, which is expensive, but safe.

Launchers get to choose between vinyl farm plastic balloons which are cheap, but... These are the ones we normally see. Typically we'd see in the media reports. But create environmental problems. Right, because vinyl's not good. Right, or balloons that are biodegradable and leave no trace.

These are the ones that you use. Those are the ones that we use, yeah. And so... What are they made, what's biodegradable? Typically, even your off-the-shelf weather balloons, which are the kind by the way, that you see now in the pictures from North Korea. North Korea is launching, using the weather balloons. They're circular rather than sort of vertical. Cylindrical. So those ones typically, the way that they operate is that

they ascend to an altitude at which the pressure differential causes the balloon to pop and those balloons disappear into ribbons. I mean they just and the material then biodegrades. North Korea is launching in such a way that the weight of the balloons keeps them low enough that they don't pop and so that's why we're able to see them here in South Korea because the goal is to create as large a noticeable footprint as possible, right? If you're going to go to the trouble of sending human waste or farm animal waste, then you want it to be detected. You don't just want it to disappear in a forest in the middle of the night.

So let's talk about these North Korean payloads that have been sent. Several hundred in, I forget how many rounds now, maybe four or five rounds in the last few weeks, carrying a lot of wrapping paper, packaging, often, not even North Korean packaging, but Chinese packaging, from which you can't really learn much about anything interesting about the North Korean economy, toilet paper, poop or manure or excrement to South Korea. Do you believe that this was in direct response to your own groups activities? I would never make an effort to try to understand interpret the actions of the North Korean government. What I would say is these are quick and dirty

balloon launches that exhibit a relatively basic level of technology that are designed to make as big an impact as possible to draw as much attention to this issue as possible. Now by the North Korean government's own identification on the launchers are in response to the activities of the the South Korean government's refusal to Halt launches within the country North Korea doesn't draw that distinction between the activity of the South Korean government and launchers within South Korea. Let's come to that distinction in a moment, but going back to, okay, so in early 2021, this new law went into effect. How is it now that balloon launch groups in South Korea are able to send balloons into North Korea unchecked. Well, the unchecked, that's a relative term. I would say that the 2020-2021 law was never used as the basis for enforcement.

The provisions that are described in that law would involve a building out or a structuring of that process. But before that could happen, the law was challenged and essentially overturned. And so it doesn't mean though that launchers continue their work on check because for more than two decades now, of course, the laws that come from local municipalities as well as the authority that the military

and intelligence agencies have to interdict launches remains in effect. So we're back to a sort of pre-2021 system. I think so, although certainly that's never a static state. I mean, over two decades, enforcement becomes more or less strict, and that's typically related to the level of tension between the countries.

Now you asked the question, is North Korea responding to, for example, our launches as our group? And what I would say is that there are launchers for whom the effort to do high-profile, easily detected launches becomes very important. I believe that North Korea is responding to those groups much more than they are the groups who launch quietly, whose goals are to remain undetected. The nature of trying to remain undetected is, of course, you never know the degree to which your launches are observed by the North

Korean government. But for example there was an article that came out yesterday talking about a group that described itself as secretive and reclusive but in the article they detailed all of their technology. They spend upwards of a thousand dollars on a balloon which is... That seems a of money it seems like a lot of money noted that their success rate was about 50 to 60 percent success rate being crossing the military demarcation and into North Korea or apparently as I understood it from the article though I can't claim to know for sure getting further away from the border region so they were saying that their goal seemed to be reaching the rest of North Korea. Right. So not just Kangwon province or South Hwanghae province.

But using 3D printers and using, you know, modified vinyl plastic balloons and so forth. But again, the thing that was surprising to me is that you're either reclusive or you're not. You're either trying to do secret launches or you're not. I think the article was rather uncritical in examining claims of the group to say, well, what is an acceptable rate of getting materials into North Korea? How should balloons be used? I think part of the reason for my speaking to you today is that I think that there is a lot of continual misinformation that comes up about balloons. For example, although it's possible technologically to use balloons to reach the northern reaches of North Korea, it's generally inadvisable.

Why? Because there are much less expensive, more effective ways of reaching North Koreans inside North Korea in all of the areas that are away from the border. So generally, balloons are most useful in the southern third of North Korea which is much more restrictive in terms of population flow. Of course you go anywhere in North Korea you have to have permission to travel from city to city but of course the closer you get to the the border regions the more restrictive you find travel. Hence whether it be underground North Korean Christians or other groups balloon launching has generally been

focused on that region not because of technical limitations, but simply because of efficiency. There are many other ways to be able to reach North Koreans inside North Korea in the areas that are away from the border. That's why balloon launching has been done along the border. Now we've reached a point from technology that that groups who employ technology well can do launches relatively inexpensively and at a very high rate of success. That means that you have to be willing only to launch on those nights where it's possible to launch. can you know? Well really on an hour by hour basis you're looking at changing conditions. I mean you think about how accurate weather forecasts are in the Korean Peninsula generally. I mean you know we rarely get the forecast right

from morning to evening. Yeah. But my point is is that the level of technology makes it so it's possible to do balloon launches that are relatively low cost, relatively covert, to be able to do it in ways that don't endanger people in South Korea or North Korea and that don't call attention to the launch itself. So this latest slew of launches both from the north to the south and from the south to the north are not representative of the cutting edge of technology. They're really representative of trying to use balloon launching to make political points. And I think this is the challenge that we need to recognize is that there's nothing

inherently dangerous about balloon launching itself. It's when balloon launching is employed to achieve political goals that it inevitably creates problems. So you have, you know, North Korea saying, well, we've got to halt all launches. And South Korea's original response was, well, we're not doing any launches. I mean, we're just, you know, believing in freedom of expression for our citizens. And so North Korea continues.

And now we're at the point of doing loudspeakers. Right. This is coming back to the point you made earlier that you believe it's useful to differentiate the use of balloons by governments from the use of balloons by private groups. Oh, well, I would say that the use of balloons for... that's a good distinction, sure. Governments and private groups and then among private groups, I think you have to distinguish between groups for whom balloon launches have value as an advocacy or theater or publicity

tool to draw attention to their cause and groups for which balloon launching has only a technical or strategic purpose. So and you put yourself in this in a second group? And I think yeah absolutely. Just without naming anyone but do you do you know of any other groups that have a similar approach to balloons as I think that's the the beauty of it right is is that the groups that do that are the ones whose names never surface in the news. They truly are reclusive and quiet about what they do. The goal isn't to draw attention to the launching of the balloons or especially to advertise what's being launched and where launches are being done. Those in my view go against the obvious goals of balloon launching, which is to as safely

as possible for people in the South and in the North deliver materials that allow North Koreans to have unmediated access to the world that's not restricted by their government. So the other group then, you know, other groups I should say who are more interested in the spectacle, in the theater of balloon launches, would you like to see more government enforcement of their activities? Well I think I wouldn't, you know, of course it's hard to judge motivation so it's hard to know how much of their work is, you know, how much value they associate with getting materials into North Korea versus the publicity that's created. I do think that that enforcement is best done by the public,

not the government, in the sense of what the public is willing to support. Obviously, a real motivation for groups publicizing their work is to be able to raise funds, both from private sources and from governments. That being said, I believe very strongly that the history of enforcement of balloon launching has been done very well and responsibly by municipalities. So as a person who's been involved in balloon launching for 20 years, I think that what I would say is that there are very few incidents that can be pointed to, which were where problems were caused by balloon launches that were done according to reasonably safe public standards. There may be one or two incidents that people could point out, but for the most part, balloon

launching ends up being much more offensive in its rhetoric than it does in its actual practice. Do you have an absolutist position on the importance of unrestrained and Unmediated communication between citizens and how do you mean an absolutist position? Well, okay You've talked before in the when you first came on the podcast and also offline in our private communications that you are very much a believer that unmediated communication between citizens of different countries is a good thing. And when I say absolutist, I think, well, what about during wartime?

Right. So it's a universal human right recognized, whether by the United Nations or I would say even as a Christian within the context of individual faith communities. But let's talk for a moment just at the level of the universal human rights that it is a human right for human beings to be able to communicate with each other without the mediation or interference of governments. And states of emergency or states of exception ought to really concern us when governments say, yeah, well, that's true in general, but now is not a good time. Essentially, we've been in a state of exception now on the Korean Peninsula, you know, since the 1940s,

where communication, ordinary communication between North Korean and South Korean people cannot take place without mediation. The presumption is that such communication compromises national security. Now given that that's one thing that we can say North and South Korean governments both actually agree on, maybe there's a point to that. You know, the fact that we have since 1953 here on the Korean Peninsula been in a state of war, although it has been, you know, you can call it an artificial peace or a frozen war or whatever you want to call it, we're still in a wartime situation here. And that's something that both Koreans agree on, is that there should not be unmediated, unfettered, unchecked communication between citizens on both sides of the border because it can be a security risk. Right. But the responsibility always falls

to the state to demonstrate or prove that the communication is compromising to national security. In other words, the presumption is always in favor of the individual. And so when law institutionalizes the mediation of contact, then that becomes bad law. And I think that's what we saw in 2021 was the creation of a law that ultimately was not sustainable.

I mean, I think it's interesting, the basis of it being overturned was freedom of expression. I think that law could have been overturned on a number of accounts, notably related to the difficulty in enforcing it. As I say, I don't think the question is ever whether freedom of expression trumps public safety. It doesn't, but neither does public safety preclude human communication.

There's always room for both. And that's the nature of negotiation. That's the nature of the importance of civil society, which has waxed and waned over the years in South Korea and has yet to take firm hold in North Korea. But the role of civil society is to continually insist on the ability of human beings to communicate without the mediation of government. And to make sure that that doesn't become criminalized simply by its mere existence. To me, I think some of the saddest situations that we see

relate to the inability, for example, of families to communicate, which has become, not just become, it's been from the inception, politicized, that only families can communicate under the most limited of circumstances because the political dimension around it becomes more significant to preserve than the inalienable right of human beings to communicate. I think that should be examined I think it's always important and always the role of civil society to raise those questions Whether it's done from a secular or a religious context I think both should be welcome and I think in the case of with balloon launching the same thing is true

I think that balloon launchers should never be afraid to Be involved in speaking in the public sphere but being held accountable for their speech. So I think the concern that I have with some of the launchers is that they interpret their judicial victories to be an absolute guarantee of their right to engage in launching activities according to the dictates of their own conscience. I certainly don't read it that way nor do I think should it be interpreted that way. So how does your organization, Voice of the Martyrs Korea, how do you balance that right to unmediated communication and freedom of expression with

safety and security? Well our responsibility is of course on the one side, right? In other words, the we are first and foremost responsible to our partners in North Korea who are the underground Christians who face restriction on the basis of their profession of their beliefs. So always we're thinking in terms of their situation and working outward from there. That said, we recognize the importance of maintaining those communications and achieving those mutual goals that we have with them in ways that recognize the concerns and respect those concerns and respond to those concerns of the general public. And so that's why even though it's more expensive, it's important to use helium. It's important to care for the environment. I think a good example of that is that for a couple of years we were testing rice bottle launches. These are using the PVC bottles and near Incheon there's areas where those can

be launched. We use GPS tracking on all of our work in order to determine where does the stuff go. Is that just a quick question there? The rice in those bottles, is that rice for cooking and eating or rice for planting as seeds? Well each each group would do it differently. The ones that you were testing. Yeah. So, so for us, generally we're not, we were not using those. They're called rice bottles, but we weren't using them for conveying

humanitarian materials. We're always launching Bibles. That's what we launched, but you might include materials for ballast. So we, we would include rice for the sake of testing to see based upon if you add more or less how that impacts where the stuff goes. What we found was that they were not reliable means of getting materials to North Korea. So we stopped. What they were was reliable means of raising money from the general public because this

very attractive idea that for almost no money that you could launch these materials and then they were washing up in mass on the North Korean shore. And that's simply fictional. I mean, that didn't happen. So even recently now there's been a return to balloon launching and I think real and legitimate concerns have been raised for issues like litter, you know, that those materials wash it back on the shore. So when we were testing, what we would do is we would do the test and then we would gather all the materials, we clean up after ourselves, and then we'd go back the next week and we'd collect everything

that washed back up. So we built a good relationship with local residents. That's important. So even though in our situation, our primary constituents, our Christians in North Korea, we have to be attentive to the legitimate concerns that people raise about issues of safety. In my view, I think more than two decades has demonstrated that technology exists to

make launching effective and safe. When those standards are set aside, whether for publicity or for cost or for the sake of achieving a symbolic value, I think groups should be held accountable not under new laws, but under the existing laws. I mean, littering is littering. It's not trumped by freedom of speech. So if you're launching materials and half your materials are launching in South Korea, why would you not be held responsible for at least the cost of cleanup? Why should you be exempt from litter ordinances? Those in my view are a really common-sense questions to raise and I don't think any balloon launcher should see themselves

as above those local ordinances. Now Eric, do you send only religious literature into North Korea? Yes. Through various means, not just the balloons but other means. Why? Why not send things that might not be so heavenly minded, but at least that'd be of earthly good? That's a great question, and let me answer it like this. You'll find today a number of groups who believe in the unmitigated good of getting what they call information into North Korea. Right, and there could be prices of markets, could be weather information, it could be Wikipedia in Korean downloaded onto a USB disc.

Right, and so you have this, in my view, largely unexamined from a communications model, idea that the more information you send in, the better. And the result will be the empowerment of North Korean people who will then be able to make informed decisions and rise up and take action which apparently they're not able to take now. So what I would say is that that's a communications model that should be examined because the

unrestrained flow of information has a term psychologically it's called noise. If we're not able to distinguish and differentiate what it is that we're receiving and a context for putting it in, then unmitigated flow of information cannot be simply assumed to be effective. So I think each group has to examine what they're sending and why. The purpose of sending a Bible isn't to do heavenly good, but rather because the Bible presents an alternative calculus to the value of human life. That is, in North Korea, a human being is considered valuable on the basis of their loyalty and usefulness to the North Korean government.

That's a songbun classification of which every citizen has. And so from birth onward, North Koreans understand that human value is something to be granted or rescinded by the North Korean government. The Bible, unlike other materials, presents a cogent alternative calculus and statement of the inalienable value of human life. It says that life is valuable because it's created by God and thus it cannot, any kind of value can't be granted or withheld by governments. So just an interesting note is that whereas for example if you are

you know down at Seoul Station you might hear a preacher preaching from the New Testament, Gospel of John, speaking about being born again. In North Korea the materials that end up being of most commonly cited by North Korean people are being useful are the book of Genesis, the original book of the Bible, which simply says that God creates human beings. So one of the questions I think needs to be asked, and as I say, I think it's a good discussion to have even outside of religious context from the standpoint of a human rights or communications model strategy, what happens when we send in K-pop and Korean drama? The idea we don't examine it is, is that good things will come from that. But I think one of the things that's happened is the trivializing of the concept of freedom and value.

I think it's interesting here today, North Korean defectors talk about freedom as the ability to choose whatever flavor of ice cream they want. That was a statement by a North Korean defector about two years ago. I've not heard or seen such a statement. So I have freedom to choose among various consumer goods. And that's the message, right, of K-pop or Korean drama is it still presents a very stratified society. I mean, you know, one of the NK News sister publications SK pro Korea pro Yeah, Korea pro ran an article talking about the inflation

Standard of living that South Korean people see when they watch TV Meaning they they see what's on TV and they say I am poor in relation to them. I have much less So what's created is this economy of desire? So is the pumping of information into North Korea and you know, any kind of information Unmitigated good over the years. We've had groups including Government groups say to us look you can send Bibles just let us include our materials in what you're doing We'll even pay for it We've always refused that of course because we have no we refuse to traffic with governments whatsoever on on their goals

We don't participate in that. So for us, we only send one thing. And the reason why is, is that we have a clear communication strategy that the, that we, when we, when we send a Bible, for example, we don't put it in a sock. We don't tuck in a dollar bill. Why? Because when groups send in materials that have utility value beyond the content itself,

you create a risk for the recipient. A person may not be interested in what you sent, but they're interested in the sock that you sent it in. They may not be interested in the Bible you sent, but they want the dollar bill that's inside. And so years ago, we changed, we used to use, two decades ago we used to use these orange balloons that were the size of like pillows right and we'd send them into

North Korea and what we found was that North Koreans were using them to wrap pipes because the the the plastic itself was large enough to have the utility value of keeping pipes from cracking in the wintertime. So we changed it. Now when you look at what we send, the materials we send are only useful for the content they contain. They're clearly marked as Bibles and any elementary school child in North Korea even actually knows what a Bible is. That's well attested. Right, I don't get that. So you're deliberately taking away an ancillary use, a secondary use of... That's correct. Why? Because safety has to be an

overriding concern. If a person wants to get a Bible, then they need to clearly understand the risk that's entailed in receiving those materials. But when launchers launch multi-purpose launch materials, when they're sending money and socks and other things. The challenge is that they're enticing North Koreans to gain access to those materials and the North Koreans don't even realize that those those launchers have promoted exactly what they're sending in the media so North Korea knows exactly what to look for. So I think not a lot of thoughtfulness goes into the the material that's sent. And so I think the purpose in sending Bibles,

on the one hand, you know, when people hear about sending Bibles first of all, and we do that in both print and electronic forms, our reason why is that we don't want anyone endangered except for anyone who consciously makes a choice to say, this is something I want to have. So you're saying that you're not trying to convert non-Christians to Christianity with these Bibles, you're actually sending them to people who already know

what they are and who want them. A non-Christian may decide that they want to read the Bible, but we want to make sure that they know what they're picking up as a Bible. We don't want to dress it up or conceal it or present it in any other form. We want it to say Bible and to make it clear that that's what a person is picking up. We don't want anyone to end up in danger because they accidentally picked up something that they didn't realize was dangerous. So you would be opposed to, for example, sending a Bible with on the front cover the words, you know, Kim Il-sung reminiscences with the century, for correct you you want it to be absolutely plain and obvious from the

get-go this is a forbidden text that you're picking up right you pick it up you know what you're doing right I don't want to send it with a dollar bill in it I don't want to send it to where it can be confusing where a person picks it up and brings it home because of the fact that it was it was wrapped up in socks that they wanted if you want to send socks, send socks, right? But don't send a conglomeration of materials that could put a North Korean person unwittingly in danger. Now last year I interviewed another Christian, Tim Peters, whose group sends in small packages

of seeds with instructions on how to plant those seeds into North Korea. I think, have you ever met him? Have you ever talked to him? Sure, yeah. Tim's been around a long time. Yeah, a long time. But he's thinking is exactly, it seems to me the exact opposite of yours. It's don't send something in that could be dangerous. Send the only things with utility and hope for the best. Well, sure. I'm not sure I would juxtapose or see things with utility as different from dangerous things. Typically, things that have utility in North Korea are very dangerous.

So I think that each group has to decide, whether Christian or secular, they have to decide what they're sending and why, and the parameters of what makes it possible for those materials to be sent in a safe a method and arrangement as possible. For us, we send Bibles not simply for the purpose of achieving a heavenly good, but because of the fact that we believe that they are the most effective means of creating an alternative understanding of human value. And when you talk to North Koreans who even choose not to become Christian. The Bible still is, one of the things that they'll identify is having raised the question for them

to understand that there were different ways of thinking than a life whose value is determined by the North Korean government. What I'm saying is that I'm not sure that K-pop and Korean drama are as effective at creating an alternative calculus of the value of human life because They portray a society that's different than North Korea But it's still driven by the same kind of class structures desires wanting what I can't have

Finding other people to be more valuable because they're more attractive than me So I think we really ought to examine and question some of the assumptions that we have that, for example, any information is good information, more information is better information, more balloons is better than fewer balloons. I think that freedom of speech Trump Trump Trump safety. I think those are all things that unfortunately, very, very little good thinking happens on the margins of public conversation. It doesn't happen. Good law, good conversation doesn't happen at the extremes a lot of shouting happens there

But it's in the middle when we can actually talk and say look Why are we doing what we do we can even disagree about what to send and why to send it? I mean, you know Tim Peters and I have had those conversations in the past But you've got to have a cogent reason for what you're sending and it has to be well thought out Are you and your or your group talking to, you know, having this kind of dialogue with with the political South Korean groups that send stuff into North Korea? Well, of course, by very nature of being devoted to civil society, the conversations that we're primarily having are just with ordinary people.

I mean, that's that's the value of this podcast. You know, the MOU Ministry of Unification announced, I think it was yesterday, according to NK News, that they would be contacting launchers who were not talking a lot. I thought that was really interesting because I, you know, you'd have to ask the question, what would be the interest in the conversation? What would be the purpose of it? What would the point be? You know, our

standard remains the same, which is that we're subject to the laws of whatever country that we're working in, and we have to be willing to pay the consequences of violating those laws. That's the nature of civil disobedience. I don't look to make contact with the MOU when they're more aligned with my goals and then don't make contact when they're less aligned with my goals. I mean, our purpose is to say as civil society, if we act responsibly, then hold us accountable. I mean, even if laws are unjust, hold us accountable according to your laws.

Well, in the last couple of minutes we have remaining to us, tell us a little bit about what's the current state of the charges against you here in South Korea. So all of the charges from the provinces were remanded to the sole prosecutor's office. They did the investigation in the fall of 2020 extending into 2021. And ultimately they decided not to press charges because of the nature of the charges, there's a difference between charges being dropped and charges, not being pressed. Yes.

And so what I was told is, is that at whatever point in the future that I commit similar violations that the prosecutor's office reserves the right to be able to draw upon the previous investigation and charges that were made in order to develop and impress their case. So it's not that the charge have been dropped it's just that they're still pending they're kind of on ice waiting for you to do something. I'm not sure I would say pending I I would say that they, you know, legally what you say is that they decided not to press charges. Right. But they reserve the right to draw upon those in the future.

I think that's why you have to always think in terms of the long game in this work. You know, part of the issue of being a foreigner in Korea is by nature, needing to stay out of political protests and so forth. I guess that's the perfect alibi that I have is the truth, which is that the nature of our work is to stay completely apolitical. And so our work is apolitical. That it has political dimensions only happens when it's recognized by the government and the government decides it wants to intervene or or interdict. And as always, we respect and submit to the government's right to do that. I certainly,

you know, when I was charged, the defense that that I made in the investigation didn't have to do with asserting my right to freedom of speech. I was totally willing to be subject to the laws that were in place. There were questions about the appropriateness of times that my vehicle was stopped or that searches were done. Also, there were real questions that came up at that time of the applicability of certain local ordinances to these issues. In other words, to what degree does an ordinance on advertising apply to balloon launches? So I always, now and in the future, stand ready to willingly face whatever charges come up because I think that's appropriate. It's part of being a citizen in any society.

So if our work is judged to be illegal and we're brought to trial and I'm brought to trial for that and I'm found to have violated the law, then it's my understanding that to be a person of integrity means that you have to be willing to accept the consequences of that. I have the right to make a vigorous defense, but the kind of defense I would make wouldn't be to pound the table and insist on my right to freedom of speech. Just for a minute there, because we really are running out of time, could you summarize the experience you had of being interrogated when you were charged? Yeah, you know, I think interrogated is a good word. I mean, I think the thing that surprised me was I always thought, Jacko, that if whenever I got in a room with an investigator, if it could, if it was made apparent that for more than two decades that we had followed the

instructions of police, military, and intelligence agencies on site, I want to emphasize that in others, we don't have cooperation with those agencies outside of that. We don't launch according to what they tell us to do or not to do. It's just when you, you go out and launch, you follow the rules, you let them know what you're doing, you answer their questions. My thought was is that if I could simply demonstrate that that was the case and that the charges against me related to anti-North Korea literature. And yet what we launch is the Bible, which is the version, interestingly, it's based

upon the version that was published by the North korean government in the early nineteen eighties and that the north korean government still recognizes in its religious freedom responses to you and reports and that freedom of religion is guaranteed north korea now of course that on the ground exigencies of that are very different but come back to your question from a legal standpoint my thought was. different. But from a legal standpoint, my thought was if it was that I could just get into a room and say, look, this is what we're doing. We're not launching anything. We're not hiding anything. We're not traipsing through anybody's tulip patch. That it would be a pretty pro forma matter. But it wasn't. It involved being investigated by Interpol, by the same detectives who are investigating murders and sex crimes. It was a long drawn out process, which included extensive surveillance on my wife and me in evolve what in my view were not questions, but assertions and in a investigative environment, which wasn't designed to get at the truth,

but was designed to make political points. That was what to me was surprising and uncomfortable is that these the police or prosecutors who are interviewing you in the room these are investigators so yeah from the police station right although I also interact with prosecutors yeah and so in that process it was an interesting time because in my view it was disproportionate to the offense you know we never ended up on TV or in the media bumping chests with police or

launching banners with Kim Jong-il in his underwear and so forth. So the idea that we were doing anything that was provocative or creating tension with North Korea, I still believe it's possible to make distinctions between launches and launchers and launch materials and relative levels of safety. But those were largely set aside in my opinion in this investigation. And so I think in the end, justice was done in that charges weren't pressed, they were not pursued. But yet here we are again at a point where I think the activities of certain launchers are calling into question, I would say making it difficult for all of us who have been associated with getting materials into North Korea,

whether by balloon or by land, sea or air. And typically, under various administrations, radio and other North Korean work hasn't been far behind that in investigation. Wow, that's what we're going to have to end it today. Thank you once again for coming on the show, Eric Foley, your voice of the martyr's career and telling us about your experiences and your observations. Thank you for the opportunity to express myself freely. In the intricate world of Korean affairs, tailored intelligence makes all the difference. Career risk groups consulting services offer specialized actionable intelligence designed

to guide your career related decisions. We provide bespoke consulting services that cater to your unique challenges and goals. From policy analysis to market entry strategies, we bring clarity to complexity. Transform uncertainty into opportunity and visit careerpro.com solutions today. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions

and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time.