Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Blowing in the Wind:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_07-2008_12_13.shtml#1228866196
A fascinating story in [1]today's L.A. Times:
Lee [Min-bok] is equal parts meteorologist, tinkering inventor and
political dissident, a man obsessed by a singular goal: to spirit
messages to those left behind in his native North Korea -- 23
million countrymen living under the ironfisted rule of Kim Jong Il.
To reach the isolated society devoid of outside newspapers, radio
and television, the 52-year-old defector uses a simple yet elegant
method to fly under the radar of North Korean intelligence
watchdogs: He sends millions of leaflets northward by way of his
towering helium balloons....
The messages are reaching common North Koreans.
Park Kwon-ha, a defector and former North Korean soldier, escaped
in 2005. He says the leaflets were like gold from the sky: "It
cannot be overemphasized how effective the fliers are. Because the
more you learn from one flier, the more you want to know." ...
"Pyongyang is apoplectic," says Marcus Noland, a North Korea
scholar for the Peterson Institute for International Economics in
Washington.
"These defectors are from within the system. They know exactly what
to say and how to say it. And they hit a nerve. For Pyongyang, they
stick the knife in and twist it."
References
1.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-balloons9-2008dec09,0,4437087.story
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