My favorite anti-Kim Jong-il activists are at again and they have a special birthday present for the “Dear Leader”:

Choi Sung-yong, the head of a group of relatives of South Koreans allegedly kidnapped by the North Korea, shows the North Korean banknotes during a press conference at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009. Activists in South Korea say they would send anti-Pyongyang leaflets along with North Korean currency bills around the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il later this month despite a government warning against it. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Activists who send leaflets to North Korea by balloon to denounce its totalitarian government said Monday they plan to include local currency as an incentive to pick up new propaganda to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il.

Sending North Korean money would be a new ploy for activists in South Korea in their attempts to urge their poverty-stricken neighbors to rise up against Kim’s regime, though they previously have tucked U.S. dollars or Chinese yuan into such leaflets.

The new plan has caused concern by South Korea’s government that it could provoke the North amid high tension between the sides, which technically remain in a state of conflict because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon renewed a warning Monday that the activists could face jail or fines if they send North Korea money without government permission.

But the activists said they were ready for any punishment, adding leaflets and currency would be dispatched near the birthday of Kim Jong Il, which is Feb. 16.

They displayed a stack of North Korean 5,000-won bills before reporters, saying each note ($1.30) could buy about 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of rice in the North.

“We are sending money to our family members,” said Choi Sung-yong, an activist whose father was abducted from his fishing boat in the 1960s and taken to North Korea. “We don’t believe we’re violating the law … If the government tries to punish us, we will take the punishment.”  [Associated Press]

I seriously doubt Lee Myung-bak would be willing to accept the public backlas that would occur by arresting activists that have had their family members kidnapped by North Korea.  Lee Myung-bak need to look at it this way, these protesters are giving North Korea their own bail out money. 

By the way, I wonder if these thugs will turn out to celebrate Kim Jong-il’s birthday by trying to stop these activists?