Duck – It’s a North Korean Poo Bomb!
Although open hostilities between North and South Korea and their various allies ended nearly 70 years ago, there has been a continuous steam of tit-for-tat incidents ever since. It’s been an endless round of provocations of varying levels of severity and hysterically funny insult hurling. Who could not be offended by being described as a “capitalist lickspittle running dog” by a subtly decorated official spokesman in a pleasingly large hat?
Insults aside, very little real information ever escapes from this most secretive communist country and what does get out is generally what North Korea decides to send out. In one of the weirder cross border incidents between the two nations, what North Korea decided to send out was poo bombs!
For several years both countries have been sending huge helium balloons fitted with self popping timers over the border. These balloons carry propaganda materials designed to influence the citizens of the opposite country. Balloons from South Korea carry pro-democracy leaflets, western news items, sweets, tobacco and, more recently, even CD’s and DVD’s. Balloons from North Korea typically deliver pro-totalitarian communism leaflets and good news about this year’s record turnip harvest.
Fascinating though the turnip industry is, the leaflets have never achieved the workers revolution that the the North had hoped. Or it may be that leaders in the North Koreans simply got infuriated when the loudspeakers playing K-Pop music over the border at several gazillion decibels started playing Justin Bieber CD’s instead. Either way, in a curious change of tactics North Korea started sending over parcels filled with rubbish, cigarette ends and human waste – yes, poo!
The 127th Airborne Latrine Division of the Peoples Korean Army (KPA) was set up with the specific task of selecting the choicest morsels from North Korea’s sewage network. These items are then inserted into the balloon delivery system for delivery to the south. It is considered a great honour to be selected for such an important and coveted position in the military and competition for places is fierce. On completion of successful training, soldiers are showered with and treated to perks such as an extra turnip per month with the possibility of a parsnip each year, harvest permitting.
If the idea of having a load of poo landing on your head wasn’t enough, it also had the effect of tying up South Korean forces who had to check each poo bomb to ensure that there were no biological weapons secreted amongst the mess. The parade of poo bomb balloons bobbing through the sky eventually came to a halt after yet another failed turnip harvest resulted in the need to increase fertiliser production.
With the apparent thawing of relations between North Korea and the rest of the world we can all hope that the only poo falling from the sky will be from our feathered friends in future. I’d still rather have that than Justin Bieber though!
