All Quiet on the Korean Front

View of check point 3 from observation post 4.

It was all quiet on the de facto border between North and South Korea that runs along the 38 parallel, a circle of latitude in the Northern Hemisphere that cuts the Korean peninsula roughly in half.

Three South Korean soldiers were on guard in “Taekwondo ready stance” facing the blue conference buildings in the Joint Security Area (JSA), the only place in the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) where North and South Korean troops stand face-to-face.

They stood still with their back straight, chin up and fists clenched. It was as if they had been turned into stone by a magic wand.

“Please don't make any gesture or wave your hands ... North Korean soldiers might think you are mocking them,” Yoon, a South Korean army officer told the journalists who were standing outside the Freedom House built by South Korea at the JSA.

He was not wrong. A North Korean soldier was keeping a close eye with a binocular from the Panmon Hall built by the communist North just opposite the House.   

Conference building

The JSA, known as Truce Village, is used by the two Koreas for negotiations and diplomatic engagements.
Once there was a small farming village called Panmunjeom, which was abandoned following the Korean War that raged for around three years. And finally, a truce between the North and the South was signed in July 1953.
The two Koreas have put up the structures in front of the UN Command Military Armistice Commission Conference buildings standing right over the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) between the two countries.
If anyone is lucky enough to get inside one of the blue buildings, he can actually enter North Korea and then just walk out, as half of the building is in South Korea and the rest in the North.

A flag stands right in the middle of the conference table inside the room draws the line between the two Koreas. South Korean soldiers stand guard to make sure that everything is in order. A road from the Freedom House leads to an observation post from where you can see Kijŏngdong, known as North Korea's Propaganda Village, the Bridge of No Return, and Checkpoint-3. “Nobody lived in the Propaganda Village before 2003 ... North Koreans started living there after the establishment of the Kaesŏng industrial zone,” said Mr Yoon.

Inside conference building.

Check point-3, the site of the 1976 axe murder incident, sits close to the Bridge of No Return. Surrounded by North Korean guard posts on three sides, it is called the loneliest outpost on earth.

This is where two US officers -- Capt Bonifas and Lt Barrett –were axed to death by North Korean soldiers on August 18 while trimming the huge 100-foot poplar tree that had blocked the line of sight between Check point-3 and 5.

Three days later, the UN Command flexed its muscles. In a joint operation, the US and South Korean troops felled the huge tree. In contrast to its name, the 250-km long and 4-km wide DMZ remains the most heavily militarised zone in the world. Around 29,000 US soldiers still guard the frontier with South Korean troops in the DMZ.  
Former US president Bill Clinton once described it as "the scariest place on Earth."

Only two villages – Tae Sung Dong on the Southern side and Kijong-dong or propaganda village on the Northern side -- were allowed to be there in the DMZ that covers an area of 1,000 square kilometres.

The bridge of no return.

Most of the area has remained uninhabited for years, making it a sanctuary for wild animals. But they are far from safe. From 1950 to 1953 during the Korean War, North Korea had planted thousands of landmines that still pose some great risk to humans as well as wild animals.

“We have removed hundreds of landmines around the Tae Sung Dong village and other areas on our side. But many are still there in the mountains … We sometimes see deer with three legs …” said Yoon, giving an example of how animals fall prey to the landmines planted deep in the forest.

He said the DMZ might be declared a conservation area once the two Koreas are reunited, which still seems to be a forlorn dream with the North remaining reluctant to get to the negotiating table.

Another good viewpoint in South Korean territory is the Dora Observatory that looks across the DMZ. First opened to the public in 1987, the observatory gives you the chance to have a glance at the Propaganda Village, the Kaesŏng industrial zone and winding roads to the North. All you need to do is to put coins inside a box attached to the binoculars lined along the edge of an elevated platform atop the Dorasan mountain.

It is hard to believe that around 55 kilometres south from the quiet DMZ lies Seoul, a bustling and thriving metropolis. And yet the two completely different worlds exist not so far away – one eerily quiet filled with tensions and the other vibrant, throbbing with life.