A guard post in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is seen without a loudspeaker previously used for propaganda broadcasts toward North Korea, Aug. 4. (Newsis) South Korea suspended the Voice of Freedom, a military-run radio broadcast targeting North Korea, on Monday, as part of the Lee Jae Myung administration’s efforts to ease inter-Korean tensions.
“The Voice of Freedom broadcast has been suspended as part of measures to reduce military tensions between the South and the North,” the Defense Ministry said in a text message to reporters at around 9 a.m. Monday. The final broadcast reportedly aired at 10 p.m. Sunday.
The Voice of Freedom, produced and operated by the South Korean military, has long served as a key tool in Seoul’s psychological operations against Pyongyang.
Its content typically included news critical of the North Korean regime, the superiority of liberal democracy, South Korea’s economic development, comparisons between the two Koreas and updates on South Korean pop culture.
The program was first launched in 1962 and has since been suspended and resumed depending on the state of inter-Korean relations.
It was most recently revived in May 2010, two months after North Korea’s torpedo attack sank a South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan.
That marked five years since the program was last halted in June 2004 under the liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration, when the two Koreas agreed to cease propaganda activities near the border.
The latest suspension comes amid President Lee’s push for reconciliation measures.
On June 11, a week after taking office, he ordered a halt to loudspeaker broadcasts along the inter-Korean border. In early August, he ordered all loudspeaker systems to be dismantled.
In a parallel move, the National Intelligence Service also ended its own radio and television broadcasts targeting the North last month.
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