Korean Demilitarized Zone
Categories: Geography of Korea | Military of South Korea | Military of North Korea | Foreign relations of North Korea | Foreign relations of South Korea
The Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ) in Korea is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an acute angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and the east end lying north of it. It is 248 km long and approximately 4 km wide.
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History
The 38th parallel north — which cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half — was the original boundary between the US-controlled and Soviet-controlled areas of Korea at the end of World War II; subsequently, upon the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea and the Republic of South Korea in 1948, it became an official international border and one of the tensest fronts in the Cold War (See Division of Korea for more details).
Both the North and the South remained heavily dependent on their sponsor states - the USSR and the USA respectively - from 1948 through to the outbreak of the Korean War. The devastating conflict - which went on to claim over 3 million lives and saw the hitherto united Korean Peninsula effectively divided along ideological lines - commenced in 1950 with a Soviet-sponsored DPRK invasion across the DMZ, and ended in 1953 after Chinese intervention pushed the front of the war back to near the 38th Parallel. In the ceasefire of July 27th, 1953, the DMZ was reinstated in its previous capacity as a buffer zone between two separate Koreas, with one major difference from 1948 - the South and the North were now two warring states. As of 2005 this war has not, technically, ended.
Owing to this theoretical stalemate, and genuine hostility between the North and the South, large numbers of troops are still stationed along both sides of the line, each side guarding against potential aggression from the other side. At Panmunjom, in a region called the Joint Security Area, a number of buildings and multiple guard posts are maintained by South Korea with the U.N. on one side and by the North Korean soldiers on the other. The Joint Security Area is the location where all negotiations since 1953 have been held, including a number of statements of Korean solidarity, which have generally amounted to little except a slight decline of tensions.
Though generally calm, the DMZ has been the scene of much sabre-rattling between the two Koreas over the years. A number of small skirmishes have occurred within the Joint Security Area since 1953. One notable incident involved the attempted chopping down of a poplar tree which resulted in two deaths and Operation Paul Bunyan. During the 1980s, the South Korean government built a 100 metre (328 ft.) tall flagpole in Taesong-dong. The North Korean government responded by building a taller one - the tallest in the world at 160 metres (525 ft.). The North Korean flag at the top weighs around 270 kg (595 lbs.) when dry and must be taken down the instant it starts raining as the tower cannot support its weight when wet.
Starting on 15 November 1974, a series of tunnels were discovered leading under the DMZ. The first of these is believed to be about 45 metres below surface, with a total length of about 3.5 kilometres, penetrating over 1000 metres into the DMZ. When the first tunnel was discovered, it featured electric lines and lamps, as well as railways and paths for vehicles. The second was discovered on 19 March 1975, and is of similar length and between 50 and 160 metres below surface. The third tunnel was discovered on 17 October 1978. As the previous two, the third tunnel was discovered following a tip off from a North Korean defector. This time the South Koreans failed to find the tunnel directly, but dug a counter-tunnel to meet the North Korean tunnel. This tunnel is about 2 kilometres long and about 150 metres below surface. The fourth tunnel was discovered on 3 March 1990. It is almost identical in structure to the second and the third tunnel.
The tunnels are each large enough to allow the passing of a division in a single hour. Today, it is possible to visit some of the tunnels as part of guided tourist tours from the south.
Current status
Other than Panmunjom and the Joint Security Area, the DMZ is devoid of humans and their machinery, other than a large number of landmines. Both Koreas deploy the majority of their military manpower and technology within 100 miles of the Military Demarcation Line that runs through the middle of the DMZ. In practical terms this represents over one million men on either side as well as large numbers of tanks, long-range artillery and armoured personnel carriers. As both sides are technically still at war with each other the DMZ is in many ways the last front of the Cold War.
Villages in the Demilitarized Zone
Within the DMZ there are two villages, one, which is run by the north and the other by the south. Taesong-dong is a village, which is found on the southern side of the DMZ is a traditional village and is strictly controlled by the South Korean government. For instance, one must have ancestral connections to the village, in order to live there. Through these limits, the population of the village is kept very small. On the other hand, Gijeong-dong or as it is called in North Korea, "Peace Village” has only a small caretaker population. In the armistice agreement the North felt that it should be allowed to have a town within the borders of the DMZ since the South already had one. UN troops call this Propaganda Village because only a small group of people cleaning and turning on lights reside within the village. Although from afar it appears to be a modern village, one can tell with binoculars that there is not even glass within the windows of the buildings. In the past, North Korean propaganda was sent out by loudspeaker across to Taesong-dong.
Propaganda
Tourists visiting the southern side of the DMZ have sometimes been told (by US soldiers acting as tour guides) that the North Korean building facing South Korea on the DMZ is not a real building, but "a facade designed to look large and impressive, in reality only a frame a few feet (1m) thick." Tourists who have visited the northern side of the DMZ have refuted this, which can be confirmed with satellite imagery ([1]). Propaganda in the North has stated that the US and South Korea have built a massive unclimbable wall across the entire length of the DMZ (the Korean wall). While the wall in question in fact exists, it is little more than a tank barrier. Upon the collapse of the Berlin Wall, propagandists in the North seized upon its value and proclaimed this tank barrier to be a wall equivalent to the one in Berlin.
Transportation
Panmunjeom (RR)/P'anmunjŏm (MR) is the site of the negotiations that ended the Korean War and is the main center of human activity in the DMZ. The village is located on the main highway and railway line (called the Gyeongui Line before division and today in the south and the P'yŏngbu Line in the north) connecting Seoul and P'yŏngyang. The highway is used on rare occasions to move people between the two countries (much like Checkpoint Charlie in Cold War East and West Berlin), and the railway line is currently being reconnected as part of the general thawing in the relations between North and South. A new road and rail connection is also being built on the Donghae Bukbu (Tonghae Pukpu) Line.
Wildlife
Except in the area around the truce village of Panmunjeom and more recently on the Donghae Bukbu Line on the east coast, humans, for the most part, have not entered the DMZ for the last fifty years. This isolation has created, as a byproduct, one of the most well preserved pieces of temperate land in the world. Environmentalists hope that if reunification occurs, the former DMZ will become a wildlife refuge.
See also
External links
- Life in Korea - article on the DMZ
- Peace Prospects Imperil Korea's Wildlife Paradisede:Demilitarisierte Zone (Korea)
es:Zona Desmilitarizada de Corea ja:軍事境界線 (朝鮮半島) nl:DMZ Korea ru:Демилитаризованная зона zh:三八线