thedrifter
11-07-03, 06:17 AM
Heavily fortified Korean DMZ is not what you'd expect
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© November 4, 2003
PANMUNJOM, SOUTH KOREA - The most heavily armed place in the world has a gift shop.
That's that just one of many surprises on a recent trip into the Demilitarized Zone, the temporary but decades-old divide between North and South Korea that doubles as a must-see tourist destination.
More than 100,000 make the trek to the DMZ from the south every year. It gets top billing in all the guidebooks on Seoul, the South's capital city of 13 million. And every tourist kiosk in the city displays at least a half-dozen fliers promoting trips to this no-man's land.
"The DMZ is the most fortified border on Earth that only Korea can offer," one brochure says. "Feel the sorrow of a divided people! For anyone who plans to visit South Korea on business or vacation, this place must not be missed."
The experience is extraordinary enough, offering a chance to stand a few feet away from armed North Korean soldiers. Not even a trip to the American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, allows ordinary citizens access so close to the front lines.
But it's the shops, rides and attractions - a trip into a North Korean "infiltration mine" and an IMAX-like movie theater - that push a journey to the DMZ into the surreal.
It's as if Walt Disney put his stamp on one of the last outposts of the Cold War.
Early each morning, tour buses fight traffic out of Seoul and head north. Their destination: Panmunjom, or the "Truce Village" that hosted negotiations for the 1953 armistice still in effect today.
Here there is no peace or war, only a cease-fire. So a Military Armistice staffed largely by South Koreans and Americans on the other. It's known officially as the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom.
To reach Panmunjom from Seoul takes about an hour. A modern highway winds along the coast, its rocky shoreline ringed by chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Buses stop at the first checkpoint just before the Tongil Bridge, about 6 miles south of Panmunjom.
All visitors must travel into this region as part of an organized group. Some tour operators even have their own North Korean defectors, who recount tales of a mysterious "Hermit Kingdom" within sight but out of reach.
Children under 10 are not allowed. Those who come can't wear jeans, sandals, short pants or "sportswear." No "shaggy or unkempt hair" either.
At a variety of gift shops, a framed snippet of the barbed wire sealing off the DMZ costs about $15. A sleeve of golf balls stamped with a Panmunjom label will set you back about $5.
At the edge of the DMZ, visitors first enter Camp Bonifas, a military base named for an American soldier murdered by ax-wielding North Koreans near the border in 1976. VIPs gather in a low-slung United Nations building on a wooded hill inside the camp. The briefing room is filled with photos of North Korean aggression inside the DMZ and dignitaries who have visited, including American presidents.
A quick slide presentation covers the basics - the armistice and the role of landmarks such as the Bridge of No Return that gave prisoners-of-war a one-time chance to return to their original side at the war's end.
Driving into the DMZ from Camp Bonifas, you cross through several checkpoints manned by South Korean soldiers who stand at attention. They salute each passing bus.
Though the DMZ is supposed to be free of military hardware, its border is not. Both countries have more than a million troops at the ready. North Korean artillery can strike in downtown Seoul from this place. As a deterrent, 37,000 U.S. servicemen and women serve in South Korea. About 300 Americans are based at Panmunjom.
Security to reach the border, known officially as the Military Demarcation Line, is multi-layered - an anti-tank wall, a minefield and a fence line manned by troops who often sleep in their combat boots.
Remarkably, ordinary people live here.
Taesong-dong is the only authorized village in the UN portion of the DMZ. Its residents are required to be either original inhabitants or direct descendants of the villagers who were living there when the Armistice was signed 50 years ago. For their trouble, their income is tax-free.
"The population is 226," the U.S. Army guide said. "And there has been no increase since the war."
Directly across from Taesong-dong is the North Korean village of Kichong-dong or "Peace Village." UN troops call it "Propaganda Village"
because over the years the North has broadcast its propaganda from there through giant speakers.
The music that drifts over the hills is loud, but somber and almost funereal.
Although North Koreans work the village fields by day, they are all removed from the area before dark and only a small custodial staff actually lives in Kichong-dong.
Embedded in the hills, the North has built giant signs facing south. A U.S. Army guide translated a few as "Our General is Number One!" and "Yankee Go Home!" At the lookout points into North Korea, you'll find everyone from giggling schoolgirls to aging, former refugees from the Korean War.
Some say they travel as a pilgrimage to pay their respects to the war dead. Others simply come to be close to the land that keeps the peninsula, and many of their own families, divided.
For decades, the South demonized its other half, teaching school children North Koreans were pigs and their soldiers were wolves. In the late 1990s, the government reversed course with a softer engagement approach known as the Sunshine Policy. Today, South Koreans sit at a crossroads, caught between the revived concern of North's nuclear weapons and ardent hope for reunification.
To tour the DMZ is to peer into both worlds.
Before approaching the border between the two countries, those on the south are let off in front of broad, marble-encased buildings. Some were built for high-level discussions between the two sides. Others were built as a center for reuniting families from North and South Korea.
But with current tensions, the buildings are rarely used.
In back of the Freedom House where divided families were supposed to reconnect, the standoff appears in full bloom.
Fear and loathing are the orders of the day inside the compound of buildings at Panmunjom. South Korean soldiers, tall by the nation's standards and wearing dark sunglasses, stand at attention in intimidation pose known by American soldiers as "ROK ready." ROK is shorthand for the Republic of Korea.
When visitors arrive, so do the North Korean soldiers. They march right up to the north-south border - a thin strip of concrete - running for 151 miles from the peninsula's East Coast to West.
Tour guides issue a firm warning: Do not speak with, make any gesture toward or in any way approach or respond to personnel from the other side.
Once in a while, the business of this single meeting place between the two sides sometimes interferes with the business of tourism. In that case, the tour operators offer a refund.
Amazingly, you can enter some of the blue buildings that sit half in North Korea and half in South Korea. But guides forbid you to touch any equipment, microphones or flags belonging to the communist side.
One of the last stops on the tour is a journey into a North Korean infiltration mine discovered by the South in 1978.
The mile-long tunnel was believed to be dug by North Koreans who planned to insert Special Forces into the South (the North claimed the tunnel was designed for coal mining). Tourists don hard hats and take a seat inside a boxcar train in front of the mine's gaping hole.
A steep ride into the hillside plunges 1,000 feet below ground. About 15 minutes later, visitors can get out and walk the length of the mine, where air is pumped in and water drips from the jagged rock walls. Imagine a dimly lit tunnel not more than six feet high and six feet wide.
When the tourists emerge, they're directed to the DMZ Movie Theater.
The three-screen cinema quickly recounts the highlights of the war and creation of the DMZ. But in a push for reunification, the film's narrator waxes longingly about a day when both countries can be reunited.
"Already," he says, "the birds and flowers are living in peace and harmony in the DMZ."
Reach Matthew Dolan at matthew.dolan@pilotonline.com
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=61881&ran=32832
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© November 4, 2003
PANMUNJOM, SOUTH KOREA - The most heavily armed place in the world has a gift shop.
That's that just one of many surprises on a recent trip into the Demilitarized Zone, the temporary but decades-old divide between North and South Korea that doubles as a must-see tourist destination.
More than 100,000 make the trek to the DMZ from the south every year. It gets top billing in all the guidebooks on Seoul, the South's capital city of 13 million. And every tourist kiosk in the city displays at least a half-dozen fliers promoting trips to this no-man's land.
"The DMZ is the most fortified border on Earth that only Korea can offer," one brochure says. "Feel the sorrow of a divided people! For anyone who plans to visit South Korea on business or vacation, this place must not be missed."
The experience is extraordinary enough, offering a chance to stand a few feet away from armed North Korean soldiers. Not even a trip to the American naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, allows ordinary citizens access so close to the front lines.
But it's the shops, rides and attractions - a trip into a North Korean "infiltration mine" and an IMAX-like movie theater - that push a journey to the DMZ into the surreal.
It's as if Walt Disney put his stamp on one of the last outposts of the Cold War.
Early each morning, tour buses fight traffic out of Seoul and head north. Their destination: Panmunjom, or the "Truce Village" that hosted negotiations for the 1953 armistice still in effect today.
Here there is no peace or war, only a cease-fire. So a Military Armistice staffed largely by South Koreans and Americans on the other. It's known officially as the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom.
To reach Panmunjom from Seoul takes about an hour. A modern highway winds along the coast, its rocky shoreline ringed by chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Buses stop at the first checkpoint just before the Tongil Bridge, about 6 miles south of Panmunjom.
All visitors must travel into this region as part of an organized group. Some tour operators even have their own North Korean defectors, who recount tales of a mysterious "Hermit Kingdom" within sight but out of reach.
Children under 10 are not allowed. Those who come can't wear jeans, sandals, short pants or "sportswear." No "shaggy or unkempt hair" either.
At a variety of gift shops, a framed snippet of the barbed wire sealing off the DMZ costs about $15. A sleeve of golf balls stamped with a Panmunjom label will set you back about $5.
At the edge of the DMZ, visitors first enter Camp Bonifas, a military base named for an American soldier murdered by ax-wielding North Koreans near the border in 1976. VIPs gather in a low-slung United Nations building on a wooded hill inside the camp. The briefing room is filled with photos of North Korean aggression inside the DMZ and dignitaries who have visited, including American presidents.
A quick slide presentation covers the basics - the armistice and the role of landmarks such as the Bridge of No Return that gave prisoners-of-war a one-time chance to return to their original side at the war's end.
Driving into the DMZ from Camp Bonifas, you cross through several checkpoints manned by South Korean soldiers who stand at attention. They salute each passing bus.
Though the DMZ is supposed to be free of military hardware, its border is not. Both countries have more than a million troops at the ready. North Korean artillery can strike in downtown Seoul from this place. As a deterrent, 37,000 U.S. servicemen and women serve in South Korea. About 300 Americans are based at Panmunjom.
Security to reach the border, known officially as the Military Demarcation Line, is multi-layered - an anti-tank wall, a minefield and a fence line manned by troops who often sleep in their combat boots.
Remarkably, ordinary people live here.
Taesong-dong is the only authorized village in the UN portion of the DMZ. Its residents are required to be either original inhabitants or direct descendants of the villagers who were living there when the Armistice was signed 50 years ago. For their trouble, their income is tax-free.
"The population is 226," the U.S. Army guide said. "And there has been no increase since the war."
Directly across from Taesong-dong is the North Korean village of Kichong-dong or "Peace Village." UN troops call it "Propaganda Village"
because over the years the North has broadcast its propaganda from there through giant speakers.
The music that drifts over the hills is loud, but somber and almost funereal.
Although North Koreans work the village fields by day, they are all removed from the area before dark and only a small custodial staff actually lives in Kichong-dong.
Embedded in the hills, the North has built giant signs facing south. A U.S. Army guide translated a few as "Our General is Number One!" and "Yankee Go Home!" At the lookout points into North Korea, you'll find everyone from giggling schoolgirls to aging, former refugees from the Korean War.
Some say they travel as a pilgrimage to pay their respects to the war dead. Others simply come to be close to the land that keeps the peninsula, and many of their own families, divided.
For decades, the South demonized its other half, teaching school children North Koreans were pigs and their soldiers were wolves. In the late 1990s, the government reversed course with a softer engagement approach known as the Sunshine Policy. Today, South Koreans sit at a crossroads, caught between the revived concern of North's nuclear weapons and ardent hope for reunification.
To tour the DMZ is to peer into both worlds.
Before approaching the border between the two countries, those on the south are let off in front of broad, marble-encased buildings. Some were built for high-level discussions between the two sides. Others were built as a center for reuniting families from North and South Korea.
But with current tensions, the buildings are rarely used.
In back of the Freedom House where divided families were supposed to reconnect, the standoff appears in full bloom.
Fear and loathing are the orders of the day inside the compound of buildings at Panmunjom. South Korean soldiers, tall by the nation's standards and wearing dark sunglasses, stand at attention in intimidation pose known by American soldiers as "ROK ready." ROK is shorthand for the Republic of Korea.
When visitors arrive, so do the North Korean soldiers. They march right up to the north-south border - a thin strip of concrete - running for 151 miles from the peninsula's East Coast to West.
Tour guides issue a firm warning: Do not speak with, make any gesture toward or in any way approach or respond to personnel from the other side.
Once in a while, the business of this single meeting place between the two sides sometimes interferes with the business of tourism. In that case, the tour operators offer a refund.
Amazingly, you can enter some of the blue buildings that sit half in North Korea and half in South Korea. But guides forbid you to touch any equipment, microphones or flags belonging to the communist side.
One of the last stops on the tour is a journey into a North Korean infiltration mine discovered by the South in 1978.
The mile-long tunnel was believed to be dug by North Koreans who planned to insert Special Forces into the South (the North claimed the tunnel was designed for coal mining). Tourists don hard hats and take a seat inside a boxcar train in front of the mine's gaping hole.
A steep ride into the hillside plunges 1,000 feet below ground. About 15 minutes later, visitors can get out and walk the length of the mine, where air is pumped in and water drips from the jagged rock walls. Imagine a dimly lit tunnel not more than six feet high and six feet wide.
When the tourists emerge, they're directed to the DMZ Movie Theater.
The three-screen cinema quickly recounts the highlights of the war and creation of the DMZ. But in a push for reunification, the film's narrator waxes longingly about a day when both countries can be reunited.
"Already," he says, "the birds and flowers are living in peace and harmony in the DMZ."
Reach Matthew Dolan at matthew.dolan@pilotonline.com
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=61881&ran=32832
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: