DANGSAN-RI: Loud, crackly sounds that sounded like an ominous, big drum being beaten again and again washed over this town on a new day. Some people reported hearing coyotes howling, material grinding together, or spirits screaming like they were from a horror film on other nights. Some claim to have heard approaching artillery or a angry monkey pounding a broken piano.
People in this South Vietnamese village near the border with North Korea claim to be victims of “noise bombing,” saying the unrelenting barrage is exhausting despite hearing various sounds at various times.
” It is driving us crazy”, said An Mi-hee, 37. ” You ca n’t sleep at night”.
No previous advertising broadcast from the North always came out of the North, so North Korea has since installed headphones along its borders with South Korea for 10 to 24 hours a day, broadcasting strange sounds that have irritated North Korean people. The unpleasant is one of the most ridiculous– and unbearable– effects of deteriorating inter-Korean relationships that have sunk to their lowest level in years under the North’s head, Kim Jong Un, and the South’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol.
After the Korean War ended in a ceasefire between 1950 and 1953, the two Koreas have oscillated between saber rattling and diplomatic accents for years. Over the past few years, Pyongyang has veered toward a more aggressive position under Kim. In order to prevent a nuclear-capable missile test, it has stepped up its efforts to handle South Korea as an enemy that the North has take in the event of a war. It has also stepped up its efforts to stop dialogue with Seoul and Washington.
Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has even adopted a more aggressive style in the South. He has demanded that Kim’s authoritarian rule be maintained by spreading the idea of freedom to the North to break through the details ghetto. To hinder Kim, South Korea has even intensified joint military exercises with the United States and Japan. These exercises included stealth jets, proper bombers, and carrier aircraft.
North Korea strengthened its ties to Russia this time, sending weapons and soldiers to Ukraine, and signing a mutual defence pact in the event that either country is attacked, complicating the global picture.
People’s lives are being increasingly impacted by the demilitarized Area between North and South Korea, where Kim’s growing conflicts toward the South have taken the form of sound assault.
” It’s bombing without shell”, An said. The distant gong-like noises outside raged in as she spoke from her living area, and the noise began to amplify as the day progressed. The worst aspect is that we are unsure of when or how long it will last.
An’s community, Dangsan, has a community of 354, with most people in their 60s and older. One of the hardest hit by North Korea’s internal conflict has been this. It is only a km from North Korea and is separated by a stretch of white water, which is located on the northern shoreline of Gwanghwa Island, north of Seoul.
” I wish they had simply broadcast their old taunts and propaganda music”, said An Seon-hoe, 67, another farmer. We could handle them at least because they were mortal sound.
Since the 1960s, monitors have been as much a fixture of the DMZ as razor-wire gates and land-mine caution signs. In response to the rival governments ‘ advertising channels, borders residents endured them, or both, depending on the political climate.
When they were on, both factors insulted each other’s officials as “puppets”. A female voice that drifted across the 2.5-mile-wide DMZ beckoned North Vietnamese soldiers to fault to” the person’s heaven” in the North. North Korean forces were enticed by sweet K-pop tunes by South Korean broadcasters.
The latest assault from the North contains no animal sound or audio– just daily sounds that villagers find hard to describe, different than calling them “irritating” and” stressful”. They have blamed them for insomnia, headaches, and even goats miscarrying, hens laying fewer eggs and the sudden death of a pet dog.
North Korea has taken a number of actions to retaliate against what it called hostility in South Korea. The recent events might explain why the sounds have gotten so bad.
Since his negotiations with President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019, Kim has shifted the course of his country’s external relations, turning increasingly hostile toward South Korea, in particular.
Kim is reportedly making the case that the next American president should talk to him about easing international sanctions in exchange for agreeing to put a stop to his nuclear program by raising the tensions. Trump’s imminent return, who is now president-elect and whom Kim met three times during his first term, could open the door for a second Having sat quietly for years, could make it easier for the two nations to get in touch again.
Others claim that Kim’s recent rhetoric toward the South reflected a fundamental shift, expressing his desire for a “neo-cold war.”
According to Koh Yu-hwan, a former head of the Korea Institute for National Unification, waves of anti-Kim propaganda leaflets were sent across the border by South Korean defectors via balloons. These leaflets called Kim” a murderous dictator” or “pig” and urged North Koreans to overthrow his government.
North Korea responded to what Pyongyang called political “filth” by sending its own balloons, loaded with trash, to the South in May as retaliation.
Weeks later, South Korea ended a six-year hiatus in propaganda broadcasts, switching its loudspeakers back on to blast K-pop and news to the North. The North responded with its blasts of strange, nerve-racking noises.
” North Korea knows its propaganda no longer works on South Koreans”, said Kang Dong-wan, an expert on North Korea at Dong-A University in the South. ” Sustaining South Korea to stop its own broadcasts and leaflets is the goal of its loudspeakers,” the statement reads.
Despite being close to the border, Dangsan residents were proud of their peaceful rural life up until inter-Korean tensions started to afflict them. In their gardens, they grew thick radishes and red peppers. Cats scurried under large, fruit-laden persimmon trees. In a chorus of honking, wild geese sped off from the rice fields where they had been harvested.
These days, however, villagers keep their windows shut to minimize the noise from North Korea. Some places have Styrofoam installed over them to add insulation. Due to the noise, children can no longer play on outdoor trampolines.
Political figures have flown to Dangsan to express their sympathies. During a parliamentary hearing last month, a teary An Mi-hee knelt before lawmakers, asking for a solution. However, according to villagers, officials suggested that there be no way to stop the psychological conflict with the North or stop it, with only providing double-pane windows for residents and livestock with medication to help them manage the stress.
According to Koh of the Korea Institute,” the solution is for the two Koreas to reaffirm their previous commitments to refrain from slander each other.” But things have only worsened. North Korea destroyed all railroad and road connections between the two Koreas last month with dynamite. The South Korean military claims that some civilian ships and air traffic were affected by it this month because it interfered with GPS signals near the South’s western border.
Residents who live close to the border have grown weary of the tensions that are occurring on the peninsula. An’s father, An Hyo-cheol, 67, the village chief of Dangsan, urged the South Korean government to stop what some villagers called a” childish” shoving match with the North. He demanded that the Yoon administration ban all forms of propaganda and that North Korea follow suit.
Residents of Dangsan claimed that the two Koreas ‘ unwavering political conflict was sacrificing them.
” The government has abandoned us because we are small in number and mostly old people”, said Park Hae-sook, 75, a villager. If Seoul were to experience the same level of noise attack as we have,” I ca n’t imagine the government doing nothing.”
The afternoon offensive began shortly after she spoke when border crossings were suffocated by tinny metallic howls.
