SALT
RESEARCH
NORTH KOREA – SOUTH KOREA BORDER
There is only one place possible to cross the border between North Korea and South Korea. The area is known as the Joint Security Area (JSA) located at Panmunjom, 40 miles north of Seoul. In the JSA Norh Korean and South Korean forces stand face to face along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). Talks between the two sides take place in the MAC (Military Armistice Conference) conference room located in one of the small blue buildings. “he one on the right was the UNC Joint Duty Office building. These buildings are set squarely on the MDL, which bisects the center of a green-felt-covered conference table inside the MAC Conference Room. Since the Commission headquarters of each side is located outside the conference area -- in Seoul for the UNC and in Kaesong for the KPA/CPV -- both sides maintain a Joint Duty Officer (JDO) at the JSA to provide continuous liaison. The JDOs meet to pass communications from the senior member or secretary of their sides. The Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) also has buildings inside the JSA to conduct business, but after the fall of communism in Poland and Czechoslovakia (the KPA/CPV delegation), North Korea dismissed them from representing their side, leaving only Sweden and Switzerland (the UNC delegation) as representatives.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Security_Area).
Crossing the Korean Border, Telegraph UK, September 10, 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/738224/Crossing-the-Korean-border.html
Since 1953 the two Koreas have been separated by a thin strip of land about two and a half miles wide. Called the demilitarised zone, or DMZ, it is almost entirely unoccupied and full of mines. It separates what is now one of the world's most modern nations from one of its most backward.
At only one place along the border do both sides meet: at the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom, about 40 miles north of the South Korean capital, Seoul. To get there we reached the UN-run Camp Bonifas on the south side of the DMZ and transferred from our tourist bus to a military one. We then drove the final few hundred yards to the demarcation line.
The border here is spectacularly theatrical. Facing each other, maybe 100 yards apart, are two buildings - on the south side an ultra-modern construction in glass and steel; on the north an imposing, grey concrete building with wide steps leading up to it. A battle of Cold War ideologies represented in bricks and mortar.
On the demarcation line itself stand five huts. In the middle one, which tourists are allowed to enter, the line bisects the middle of a shiny, wooden negotiating table. Meetings between the two nations still go on here. Once in the hut, you can walk round the table - thus stepping a few yards into North Korea.
From the hut, you can also peer outside and see soldiers of both sides. The south side is patrolled by South Koreans in forest-green uniforms and hard hats, the north side by North Koreans in olive-green uniforms and large caps. It's the only place where soliders of both countries come face to face on a daily basis - yet the feeling is of absurdity rather than of danger and fear.
We were allowed to take pictures of the other side, but always with our guide reminding us not to wave, or point. "You have to be very careful not to be used as propaganda," she said several times. Although, of course, propaganda cuts both ways - the visit subjected us only to the South Korean point of view.
After leaving the JSA we stopped off on the side of a hill, from where we could look at a North Korean village. "Propaganda village," informed the guide. The settlement, she said, was built by the North Koreans to show how prosperous and well-organized they are, but it has few inhabitants. (The South Koreans realised it was virtually empty because all the lights went off at the same time each night.)
On the South Korean side of the DMZ there is also a village. "Freedom village," the guide told us, and inhabited by 250 real people, mostly farmers. Yet it was not the hypocrisy of calling your own village Freedom and calling theirs Propaganda that seemed particularly petty; it was the bizarre reduction of hostilities to a competition to have the highest flagpole. That race was won definitively by Propaganda village:- its 525ft pole, looking like a giant television mast, towers over the village and dominates the rest of the barren landscape around it.
A consequence of the stand-off between the Koreas has meant that the DMZ, with almost no human activity in it, has become a haven for wildlife. (Only the wild boars are heavy enough to set off a landmine, which they do occasionally.) As we drove out we passed an egret in a rice paddy.
Panmunjom Travel Center
http://www.koreadmztour.com/english/jsa/pan_main.htm
