Korea church scraps border Christmas lights fearing reprisals
(Nov. 28, 2012) A South Korean church group has scrapped plans to display Christmas
lights near the border with North Korea, after residents voiced fears Pyongyang might
shell the illuminations. The Military Evangelical Association of Korea had planned
to set up the giant display on three tree-shaped steel towers on hills near the heavily
fortified border. The proposal required approval from the defense ministry as the
hills are within three kms. of the frontier. According to the ministry, local residents
had protested against the plan on the grounds it might provoke a military response
from North Korea. As a result, the church group agreed last week to shelve the proposal.
"We respect the group's decision," said a ministry spokesman. Before the South's
"Sunshine Policy" of engagement with North Korea launched in 1998, the seasonal lighting
displays were common. Pyongyang repeatedly condemned them as "psychological warfare"
aimed at spreading Christianity to the isolated socialist North. In 2004 the two Koreas
agreed to halt official-level cross-border propaganda and the South stopped the Christmas
border illuminations completely. They were resumed in 2010 after North Korea shelled
a frontline island, but were postponed last year in a conciliatory gesture following
the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.