thedrifter
01-30-08, 05:24 AM
Off the Korean peninsula, fishermen on the front lines
By Choe Sang-Hun
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
BAENGNYEONG ISLAND, South Korea: On a clear day, one can stand on this island and see the coast of North Korea lying pale and milky on the horizon. The narrow channel could be crossed in just a half hour by boat.
But for Chang Hyung Soo, a 64-year-old retired diver here, this strip of water, 16 kilometers, or 10 miles, wide is what separates him from his hometown. It is what keeps three friends of his, who were lost in fog while fishing and taken to the North three decades ago, from returning home.
Stretching before Chang is a divide hardened by a half century of mistrust and enmity.
"One day, they say, North and South Korean boats will fish peacefully together in this water," he said from a wind-battered hilltop observatory, gazing at the land his family fled during the 1950-3 Korean War and never visited again. "But we should never give up any of our waters to the North Koreans. If we start doing that, they'll claim this island too."
Baengnyeong is South Korea's northernmost island, resting in waters off the North Korean coast. Fishermen here proudly call it "South Korea's left-hand uppercut into North Korea's chin."
Since their leaders met in October, North and South Korea have been attempting something unprecedented: creating joint fishing zones in long-disputed waters near Baengyeong and four other South Korean islands scattered near the North Korean coast.
But subsequent talks on the issue have made little progress, with the North, which has never accepted the boundary that was unilaterally drawn by U.S.-led United Nations forces at the end of the Korean War, insisting that the zones be south of that line and the South proposing that the zones straddle an equal amount of territory on each side.
How to calm the seething waters around the five islands presents an especially tough challenge for the next South Korean president, Lee Myung Bak, because without peace here, an easing of tensions will remain difficult. Lee has said he would oppose any deal that would compromise the UN boundary.
The two Koreas have made major strides toward reconciliation along their land border in recent years. They have breached fences and cleared mines to let trucks, freight trains and tourist buses cross. But little has changed in these western waters, the site of deadly skirmishes between the two sides' navies in 1999 and 2002.
"We must keep outside the range of North Korean shore guns," said Park Moon Il, the captain of the ferry Democracy 5, explaining why after leaving from Incheon he must make a 220-kilometer detour around North Korean coastal waters to reach Baengnyeong. "If we were allowed to beeline to Baengnyeong, we could shorten our trip by an hour and save four drums of fuel," he said.
From a distance, Baengnyeong looks like any other peaceful island. Crab and anchovy boats rest on mud flats, waiting for the tide. From its bluffs, jet-black cormorants dive for fish. Families and dogs trot out when Park's ferry approaches after its four-hour voyage.
But up close, this is no ordinary island. Its snowy hills are pockmarked by artillery positions and bunkers, where marines and villagers will dig in if North Korea showers the island with rockets and artillery shells in the initial hours of a war. Rusty steel columns jut from the beach to thwart enemy landing craft. Signs on the barbed-wire fences along the shoreline read: "Mines."
"We cursed our luck when we were assigned here," said Chae Sun Ki, a 23-year-old marine. "But we are proud of guarding this frontier. Not every South Korean gets this chance."
The U.S. military posted a contingent here until 1981. Now only South Korean marines remain. There is nearly one marine for each of the 4,900 civilians in this 51-square-kilometer, or 20-square-mile, island, making it the most militarized island in South Korea.
Offshore, navy vessels shadow fishing boats, ensuring they do not stray into communist waters, and guard the disputed sea border from North Korean gunboats. All fishermen must return home before sundown. Anyone who ventures onto the beaches after dusk risks being shot.
"Here, you will find some of South Korea's staunchest anti-Communists," said Kim Ki Wang, 39, a fisherman. "When we were schoolchildren, we burned Kim Il Sung in effigy. We composed anti-Communist slogans. Our favorite was, 'The best way to treat a Communist and a rabid dog is with a club.' "
The five islands - and the United Nations' "Northern Limit Line," a boundary set for South Korean naval ships to conduct operations - have helped contain North Korean naval expansion into waters west of Seoul, as well as securing rich supplies of fish and crabs for South Korean dining tables.
Like Kim and Chang, many Baengnyeong residents are North Korean natives who fled communist rule during the war, or their offspring. South Korea encouraged their settlement here with tax cuts and housing subsidies.
But since 1973, North Korean gunboats have regularly violated the UN boundary. After the 1999 clash, North Korea declared a new border deep inside waters controlled by the South. It claimed the waters around the five South Korean islands and said the South Korean islanders should confine their maritime movements to a narrow passageway.
Baengnyeong residents bristle at the North Korean claims. "Let them come. I will rush out even if I have to fight with a poker," said Cho Sook Ja, 68, who runs a waterfront restaurant.
Baengnyeong is the only place in South Korea where high school students and homemakers have been required to join in regular military drills with live ammunition. This rigorous civil defense training subsided as relations between the Koreas eased, especially after their first summit meeting in 2000.
Following that meeting, many on this island felt they were being left behind as a mood of reconciliation swept through the rest of South Korea. Ubiquitous mines and the four-hour detour voyage impeded efforts to develop the island as a tourist destination.
To make matters worse, hundreds of Chinese fishing boats, after paying fees to the North Korean Navy, have sailed into waters between their islands and North Korea in recent years while the South Korean fishermen have been restricted to waters close to their own shores.
"The Chinese trawlers catch anything, everything and deplete our seas," said Kim Myong San, 78, who first came to Baengnyeong as a marine and settled here with his wife. "If the Chinese aren't stopped, we'll have to pack and leave. There will be no more fish to catch and no living to make."
When President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea met Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, in Pyongyang in October, they agreed to create a joint fishing zone to help resolve the border dispute. But talks have stalled. Not long after the meeting, the North's naval command resumed accusations that South Korean warships were violating its waters.
The South's navy chief of staff, Admiral Song Young Moo, responded by saying Baengnyeong must be defended. "If we give it up, Seoul will be threatened," he told Parliament.
Baengnyeong islanders say they especially resent North Korean recalcitrance on the border issue after the billions of dollars South Korea has provided in humanitarian aid and economic assistance.
Meanwhile, the divide remains.
"A few weeks ago, a 93-year-old man came here to take a last look at his hometown across the channel before he died," Chang said from the hilltop. "But he could see nothing because of the fog. I still remember the old man's tears of disappointment."
Ellie
By Choe Sang-Hun
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
BAENGNYEONG ISLAND, South Korea: On a clear day, one can stand on this island and see the coast of North Korea lying pale and milky on the horizon. The narrow channel could be crossed in just a half hour by boat.
But for Chang Hyung Soo, a 64-year-old retired diver here, this strip of water, 16 kilometers, or 10 miles, wide is what separates him from his hometown. It is what keeps three friends of his, who were lost in fog while fishing and taken to the North three decades ago, from returning home.
Stretching before Chang is a divide hardened by a half century of mistrust and enmity.
"One day, they say, North and South Korean boats will fish peacefully together in this water," he said from a wind-battered hilltop observatory, gazing at the land his family fled during the 1950-3 Korean War and never visited again. "But we should never give up any of our waters to the North Koreans. If we start doing that, they'll claim this island too."
Baengnyeong is South Korea's northernmost island, resting in waters off the North Korean coast. Fishermen here proudly call it "South Korea's left-hand uppercut into North Korea's chin."
Since their leaders met in October, North and South Korea have been attempting something unprecedented: creating joint fishing zones in long-disputed waters near Baengyeong and four other South Korean islands scattered near the North Korean coast.
But subsequent talks on the issue have made little progress, with the North, which has never accepted the boundary that was unilaterally drawn by U.S.-led United Nations forces at the end of the Korean War, insisting that the zones be south of that line and the South proposing that the zones straddle an equal amount of territory on each side.
How to calm the seething waters around the five islands presents an especially tough challenge for the next South Korean president, Lee Myung Bak, because without peace here, an easing of tensions will remain difficult. Lee has said he would oppose any deal that would compromise the UN boundary.
The two Koreas have made major strides toward reconciliation along their land border in recent years. They have breached fences and cleared mines to let trucks, freight trains and tourist buses cross. But little has changed in these western waters, the site of deadly skirmishes between the two sides' navies in 1999 and 2002.
"We must keep outside the range of North Korean shore guns," said Park Moon Il, the captain of the ferry Democracy 5, explaining why after leaving from Incheon he must make a 220-kilometer detour around North Korean coastal waters to reach Baengnyeong. "If we were allowed to beeline to Baengnyeong, we could shorten our trip by an hour and save four drums of fuel," he said.
From a distance, Baengnyeong looks like any other peaceful island. Crab and anchovy boats rest on mud flats, waiting for the tide. From its bluffs, jet-black cormorants dive for fish. Families and dogs trot out when Park's ferry approaches after its four-hour voyage.
But up close, this is no ordinary island. Its snowy hills are pockmarked by artillery positions and bunkers, where marines and villagers will dig in if North Korea showers the island with rockets and artillery shells in the initial hours of a war. Rusty steel columns jut from the beach to thwart enemy landing craft. Signs on the barbed-wire fences along the shoreline read: "Mines."
"We cursed our luck when we were assigned here," said Chae Sun Ki, a 23-year-old marine. "But we are proud of guarding this frontier. Not every South Korean gets this chance."
The U.S. military posted a contingent here until 1981. Now only South Korean marines remain. There is nearly one marine for each of the 4,900 civilians in this 51-square-kilometer, or 20-square-mile, island, making it the most militarized island in South Korea.
Offshore, navy vessels shadow fishing boats, ensuring they do not stray into communist waters, and guard the disputed sea border from North Korean gunboats. All fishermen must return home before sundown. Anyone who ventures onto the beaches after dusk risks being shot.
"Here, you will find some of South Korea's staunchest anti-Communists," said Kim Ki Wang, 39, a fisherman. "When we were schoolchildren, we burned Kim Il Sung in effigy. We composed anti-Communist slogans. Our favorite was, 'The best way to treat a Communist and a rabid dog is with a club.' "
The five islands - and the United Nations' "Northern Limit Line," a boundary set for South Korean naval ships to conduct operations - have helped contain North Korean naval expansion into waters west of Seoul, as well as securing rich supplies of fish and crabs for South Korean dining tables.
Like Kim and Chang, many Baengnyeong residents are North Korean natives who fled communist rule during the war, or their offspring. South Korea encouraged their settlement here with tax cuts and housing subsidies.
But since 1973, North Korean gunboats have regularly violated the UN boundary. After the 1999 clash, North Korea declared a new border deep inside waters controlled by the South. It claimed the waters around the five South Korean islands and said the South Korean islanders should confine their maritime movements to a narrow passageway.
Baengnyeong residents bristle at the North Korean claims. "Let them come. I will rush out even if I have to fight with a poker," said Cho Sook Ja, 68, who runs a waterfront restaurant.
Baengnyeong is the only place in South Korea where high school students and homemakers have been required to join in regular military drills with live ammunition. This rigorous civil defense training subsided as relations between the Koreas eased, especially after their first summit meeting in 2000.
Following that meeting, many on this island felt they were being left behind as a mood of reconciliation swept through the rest of South Korea. Ubiquitous mines and the four-hour detour voyage impeded efforts to develop the island as a tourist destination.
To make matters worse, hundreds of Chinese fishing boats, after paying fees to the North Korean Navy, have sailed into waters between their islands and North Korea in recent years while the South Korean fishermen have been restricted to waters close to their own shores.
"The Chinese trawlers catch anything, everything and deplete our seas," said Kim Myong San, 78, who first came to Baengnyeong as a marine and settled here with his wife. "If the Chinese aren't stopped, we'll have to pack and leave. There will be no more fish to catch and no living to make."
When President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea met Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, in Pyongyang in October, they agreed to create a joint fishing zone to help resolve the border dispute. But talks have stalled. Not long after the meeting, the North's naval command resumed accusations that South Korean warships were violating its waters.
The South's navy chief of staff, Admiral Song Young Moo, responded by saying Baengnyeong must be defended. "If we give it up, Seoul will be threatened," he told Parliament.
Baengnyeong islanders say they especially resent North Korean recalcitrance on the border issue after the billions of dollars South Korea has provided in humanitarian aid and economic assistance.
Meanwhile, the divide remains.
"A few weeks ago, a 93-year-old man came here to take a last look at his hometown across the channel before he died," Chang said from the hilltop. "But he could see nothing because of the fog. I still remember the old man's tears of disappointment."
Ellie