Where East meets West in Korea

Press, 14 June 1978, Page 19

Where East meets West in Korea

Bears, tigers, and deer ■— endangered species in the Korean Peninsula — have found an unlikely sanctuary in the midst of the tense military armistice between North and South Korea. Since the armistice — a ceasefire, not a peace settlement — was signed almost 25 years ago, the two sides have faced each other across a Demilitarised Zone (D.M.Z.).

Under the terms of the armistice each side is per-* mitted to have no more than 1000 people in its half of the D.M.Z. at any one time.

The result: a strip of land 4000 metres wide and 155 miles long has become a sanctuary where wild life flourished with little fear of disturbance by man except for the thuds and thumps from military firing ranges and exercises close to the D.M.Z. on both sides. But the an'mals have little chance of escaping from their long, narrow sanctuary. On both its edges the D.M.Z. is wired and mined.

Along the Military Demarcation Line, in the centre of the D.M.Z., nearly 1300 marker poles stretch across Korea with signs warning off visitors. The signs pointing south are in English and Korean; those pointing north are in Korean and Chinese. The only break in the D.M.Z. occurs near Panmunjom, a few miles inland from the west coast. Here regular meetings are

held between the two sides through the Military Armistice Commission.

The meetings have been going on for 25 years with no progress towards a more lasting settlement of the differences between communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea.

But the meetings have, at least, been successful in preventing any of the thousands of truce violations alleged by one side or the other from escalating to a resumption of the war.

The meetings take place inside a hut which straddles the Military Demarcation Line. The line, in fact, runs across the centre of the table where the delegates — American representatives of the United Nations from the South, and representatives of North Korea and the Chinese communist "volunteers” from the north — sit facing each other. The hut, along with observation towers and other buildings erected by the two sides, stands within a Joint Security Area about 800 metres wide. Both sides are permitted to have up to 35 security guards within this area at any ope time.

Once, these guards could roam fairly freely. But a series of scuffles and incidents, culminating in the fight two years ago when two American officers were axed to death by North Korean guards when the Americans tried to trim a tree, have led to a situ-

ation where guards on both sides stay fairly rigidly on their own sides. Only within the hut where the Military Armistice Commission meets is it possible to cross the border, for a few feet, and enter the "other Korea.” Both sides treat the Joint Security Area as something of a tourist attraction. For $l5, a visitor to Seoul, the South Korean capital, can book on a day tour by bus to the D.M.Z. — with lunch at Camp Kittyhawk, the nearest American base on the edge of the D.M.Z., thrown in. There, visitors can see one of the strangest golf courses in the world. It has one hole, with three tees to give variety. “If you play into the rough, you leave your ball alone,” said one of the off-duty security men. “The fairway runs down the side of a minefield.” Visitors to the Joint Security Area are asked to sign a statement absolving the United Nations command, and the United States Army, from responsibility for anything that happens to them. Visitors are also warned that any gestures made towards North Korean guards may be misinterpreted. "A friendly wave they treat as an invitation to defect to the South; a rude sign they interpret as an interrational insult,” said an American briefing officer. “Either way it gives them an opportunity to start trouble.”

As an added precaution

tne American security platoon on duty in the Joint Security Area forms a thin cordon between visitors and the North Koreans. A second “instant reaction” platoon armed with riot control weapons waits on call just outside the American side of the

area. Men in both platoons are volunteers and must pass rigorous physical tests and intelligence tests. All are over six feet tall.

For all that, the North Korean guards appear rather to enjoy waving and gesturing at visitors, as well as taking photographs of them. Visitors inside the neutral armistice commission hut find curious North Korean guards peering back a few inches away when they look out the windows. Inside the conference room microphones provide facilities for translation between English, Korean, and Chinese. Two flags — those of the United Nations and the People’s Democratic Republic cf Korea — stand on the table. Even the flags have been cause for tension and eventual compromise. The North Korean flag has longer gold tassels than that of the United Nations, but the United Nations flag has more tassels. The North Korean standard has a heavier gold cap at the top, but the United Nations standard is half an inch higher.

A few yards back from the meeting room, on the southern side, the South Korean Government, with the support of the United Nations Command, has built a welcoming “Freedom House” in traditional style as a symbol of hope for the peaceful reunification of the two halves of Korea.

Less than 100 yards to the north, the communists have responded with a slightly larger building, in more functional design. “They say it’s an office block,” said one American security guard. “Bu they never seem to use more than one room at a time for the duty officer of the day. He just changes room from time to time to give the impression the whole place is occupied.” The infamous tree remains, just inside the American half of the Joint Security Area. Its top branches were lopped off after the axe murders two years ago to give a better view from a United Nations observation post. But the tree is sprouting again. For tourists, a highlight of a visit to the Joint Security Area is a whirl past

the tree in a bus. The same loop of road also passes “the Bridge of No Return” — the point at which prisoners were exchanged after the armistice.

Prisoner exchange became a dangerously disruptive issue after the fighting stopped in the Korean War because many northerners captured by the United Nations and the South Koreans refused t•> return to their half of the country. The communists claimed that they were being kept against their wishes.

Outside the joint security area, but still within the D.M.Z., both sides have built villages intended to demostrate the quality of life on opposing sides of the armistice line. On the South Korean side the villagers of Taesong Dong plant rice almost up to the military demarcation line. Several hundred villagers live there; they enjoy freedom from taxation and from conscription into the South Korean Army. In return they face the possibility that they will be in the centre of any renewal of hostilities; and

each day they must endure a barrage of slogans from loudspeakers in “Propaganda Village” which faces them from the northern side less than a mile away. According to the American troops based in the area, no North Koreans live in “Propaganda Village.” “They try to pretend they live there, but we never see children or women,” said one American officer. “We see a handful of maintenance men arrive each morning, and they have someone there who switches the lights on and off.” The parties of tourists which visit the Joint Security Area from both halves of Korea, the constant concern with details of status, the efforts by both sides to make propaganda, and even the occasional scuffles between ba t o n-wielding guards from the two sides, give an air of unreality tc what remains one of the most tense frontiers anywhere in the world.

Seoul, the captial of South Korea, is only 3C miles from the D.M.Z. “Three minutes for a communist bomber from the nearest North Korean airfield,” the South Koreans point out to visitors. South Korea’s military situation, at a time when the withdrawal of American troops is becoming a reality, will be discussed in a second article.

: Story and pictures by NAYLOR HILLARY, who 1 recently visited the border between South and North ’ Korea, and found that he could venture a few feet : over the dividing line inside the hut which serves as I a meeting place for members of the Military Armistice ’ Commission from the two sides.