22 February 2017•Update: 22 February 2017
By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korea’s military has risked provoking a spike in tensions with Pyongyang after using border loudspeakers to inform North Koreans about the alleged assassination of their leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, according to reports Wednesday.
Seoul has been growing increasingly confident through public statements that its northern neighbor was responsible for the killing of Kim Jong-nam at an airport in Malaysia on Feb. 13.
With South Korea’s acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn insisting Monday that the North should “pay a due price for its terrorist act”, it appears Seoul is already taking action.
“We have made broadcasts through 34 loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border to inform North Korean soldiers and civilians that their leader Kim Jong-un was behind the killing of his elder half-brother Kim Jong-nam,” a military official told local news agency Yonhap, which reported the retaliation began last weekend.
Malaysian authorities have so far identified eight North Korean suspects, although it is still not clear how Kim died.
The 46-year-old had fallen foul of Pyongyang’s regime and had been effectively living in exile for years.
South Korean attempts to educate North Koreans about the reclusive state’s human rights abuses have been controversial in the past -- Pyongyang has previously threatened to fire on border loudspeaker stations, viewing broadcasts as an act of war.
The South switched loudspeakers on August 2015 for the first time in more than a decade amid the souring of bilateral ties.
Depending on conditions, it is believed such broadcasts can reach as far 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) by day and more than double that distance at night.
