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East Asia

East Asia

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

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Introduction

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The Korean War 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 began when North Korea invaded South Korea.

  • The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance.

  • Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the closing days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, and liberated Korea north of the 38th parallel. U.S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments.

Introduction

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—moved into the south on 25 June 1950.

  • On that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire.

  • On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83: Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation and dispatch of the UN Forces in Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UN's military personnel.

Introduction

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter.

  • In September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops.

  • Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, or into the mountainous interior.

  • At this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951.

  • After these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel.

Introduction

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate. North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in air-to-air combat for the first time in history, and Soviet pilots covertly flew in defense of their communist allies.

  • The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners.

  • However, no peace treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war.

  • Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present.

Korean Demilitarized Zone

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula.

  • It is established by the provisions of the Korean Armistice Agreement to serve as a buffer zone between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

  • The Demilitarized zone (DMZ) is a border barrier that divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half. It was created by agreement between North Korea, China and the United Nations in 1953.

  • The DMZ is 250 kilometres (160 miles) long, and about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide.

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Within the DMZ is a meeting-point between the two nations in the small Joint Security Area near the western end of the zone, where negotiations take place.

  • There have been various incidents in and around the DMZ, with military and civilian casualties on both sides.

History

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The 38th parallel north—which divides the Korean Peninsula roughly in half—was the original boundary between the United States and Soviet Union's brief administration areas of Korea at the end of World War II.

  • Upon the creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, informally North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (ROK, informally South Korea) in 1948, it became a de facto international border and one of the most tense fronts in the Cold War.

  • Both the North and the South remained dependent on their sponsor states from 1948 to the outbreak of the Korean War.

History

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • That conflict, which claimed over three million lives and divided the Korean Peninsula along ideological lines, commenced on 25 June 1950, with a full-front DPRK invasion across the 38th parallel, and ended in 1953 after international intervention pushed the front of the war back to near the 38th parallel.

  • In the Armistice Agreement of 27 July 1953, the DMZ was created as each side agreed to move their troops back 2,000 m (2,200 yards) from the front line, creating a buffer zone 4 km (2.5 mi) wide. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) goes through the center of the DMZ and indicates where the front was when the agreement was signed.

History

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • 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.

  • The armistice agreement explains exactly how many military personnel and what kind of weapons are allowed in the DMZ.

  • Soldiers from both sides may patrol inside the DMZ, but they may not cross the MDL; ROK soldiers, however heavily armed, patrol under the aegis of military police, and have memorized each line of the armistice. Sporadic outbreaks of violence have killed over 500 South Korean soldiers, 50 US soldiers and 250 soldiers from DPRK along the DMZ between 1953 and 1999.

History

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Daeseong-dong (also Tae Sung Dong) and Kijŏng-dong are the only settlements allowed by the armistice committee to remain within the boundaries of the DMZ.

  • Residents of Tae Sung Dong are governed and protected by the United Nations Command and are generally required to spend at least 240 nights per year in the village to maintain their residency.

  • In 2008, the village had a population of 218 people. The villagers of Tae Sung Dong are direct descendants of people who owned the land before the 1950–53 Korean War.

  • To continue to deter North Korean incursion, in 2014 the United States government exempted the Korean DMZ from its pledge to eliminate anti-personnel landmines.

Joint Security Area

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Inside the DMZ, near the western coast of the peninsula, Panmunjom is the home of the Joint Security Area (JSA). Originally, it was the only connection between North and South Korea but that changed in 2007 when a Korail train went through the DMZ to the North on the new Donghae Bukbu Line built on the east coast of Korea.

  • There are several buildings on both the north and the south side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), and there have been some built on top of it. The JSA is the location where all negotiations since 1953 have been held, including statements of Korean solidarity, which have generally amounted to little except a slight decline of tensions.

Joint Security Area

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • There are several buildings on both the north and the south side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), and there have been some built on top of it. The JSA is the location where all negotiations since 1953 have been held, including statements of Korean solidarity, which have generally amounted to little except a slight decline of tensions.

  • The MDL goes through the conference rooms and down the middle of the conference tables where the North Koreans and the United Nations Command (primarily South Koreans and Americans) meet face to face.

Joint Security Area

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Within the JSA are a number of buildings for joint meetings called Conference Row. These are used for direct talks between the Korean War participants and parties to the armistice.

  • Facing the Conference Row buildings are the North Korean Panmun Hall and the South Korean Freedom House. In 1994, North Korea enlarged Panmungak by adding a third floor.

  • In 1998, South Korea built a new Freedom House for its Red Cross staff and to possibly host reunions of families separated by the Korean War. The new building incorporated the old Freedom House Pagoda within its design.

Joint Security Area

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

Villages

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Both North and South Korea maintain peace villages in sight of each other's side of the DMZ. In the South, Daeseong-dong is administered under the terms of the DMZ.

  • Villagers are classed as Republic of Korea citizens, but are exempt from paying tax and other civic requirements such as military service.

  • In the North, Kijŏng-dong features a number of brightly painted, poured-concrete multi-story buildings and apartments with electric lighting.

  • These features represented an unheard of level of luxury for rural Koreans, north or south, in the 1950s.

Villages

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The town was oriented so that the bright blue roofs and white sides of the buildings would be the most distinguishing features when viewed from the border.

  • However, based on scrutiny with modern telescopic lenses, it has been claimed the buildings are mere concrete shells lacking window glass or even interior rooms, with the building lights turned on and off at set times and the empty sidewalks swept by a skeleton crew of caretakers in an effort to preserve the illusion of activity.

DMZ-related incidents and incursions

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Since demarcation, the DMZ has had numerous cases of incidents and incursions by the North Koreans, although the North Korean government never acknowledges direct responsibility for any of these incidents.

  • This was particularly intense during the Korean DMZ Conflict (1966–1969) when a series of skirmishes along the DMZ resulted in the deaths of 43 American, 299 South Korean and 397 North Korean soldiers.

  • This included the Blue House Raid in 1968, an attempt to assassinate President Park Chung Hee at the Blue House.

DMZ-related incidents and incursions

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In 1976, in now declassified meeting minutes, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements told Henry Kissinger that there had been 200 raids or incursions into North Korea from the south, though not by the U.S. military.

  • Details of only a few of these incursions have become public, including raids by South Korean forces in 1967 that had sabotaged about 50 North Korean facilities.

Incursion tunnels

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Since 15 November 1974, South Korea has discovered four tunnels crossing the DMZ that had been dug by North Korea; the orientation of the blasting lines within each tunnel indicated they were dug by North Korea.

  • North Korea claimed that the tunnels were for coal mining, however no coal was found in the tunnels, which were dug through granite. Some of the tunnel walls were painted black to give the appearance of anthracite.

Incursion tunnels

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The tunnels are believed to have been planned as a military invasion route by North Korea. They run in a north-south direction and do not have branches.

  • Following each discovery, engineering within the tunnels has become progressively more advanced. For example, the third tunnel sloped slightly upwards as it progressed southward, to prevent water stagnation.

  • Today, visitors from the south may visit the second, third and fourth tunnels through guided tours.

Incursion tunnels

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The first tunnel was discovered on 20 November 1974, by a South Korean Army patrol, noticing steam rising from the ground. The initial discovery was met with automatic fire from North Korean soldiers. Five days later, during a subsequent exploration of this tunnel, US Navy Commander Robert M. Ballinger and ROK Marine Corps Major Kim Hah Chul were killed in the tunnel by a North Korean explosive device. The blast also wounded five Americans and one South Korean from the UN Command.

  • The second tunnel was discovered on 19 March 1975. It is of similar length to the first tunnel. It is located between 50 and 160 m (160 and 520 ft) below ground, but is larger than the first, approximately 2 by 2 m (7 by 7 feet).

Incursion tunnels

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The third tunnel was discovered on 17 October 1978. Unlike the previous two, the third tunnel was discovered following a tip from a North Korean defector. This tunnel is about 1,600 m (5,200 ft) long and about 73 m (240 ft) below ground. Foreign visitors touring the South Korean DMZ may view inside this tunnel using a sloped access shaft.

  • A fourth tunnel was discovered on 3 March 1990, north of Haean town in the former Punchbowl battlefield. The tunnel's dimensions are 2 by 2 m (7 by 7 feet), and it is 145 metres (476 ft) deep. The method of construction is almost identical in structure to the second and the third tunnels.

Korean Wall

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • According to the DPRK, between 1977 and 1979 the South Korean and United States authorities constructed a concrete wall along the DMZ.

  • The DPRK, however, began to propagate information about the wall only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the symbolism of a wall unjustly dividing a people became more apparent

Loudspeaker Installations

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • From 1953 until 2004 both sides broadcast audio propaganda across the DMZ. Massive loudspeakers mounted on several of the buildings delivered DPRK propaganda broadcasts directed towards the south as well as propaganda radio broadcasts across the border. In 2004, the North and South agreed to end the broadcasts.

  • After four days of negotiations, on August 25, 2015 South Korea agreed to discontinue the broadcasts.

Balloons

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • Both North and South Korea have held balloon propaganda leaflet campaigns since the Korean War.

  • In recent years, mainly South Korean NGOs have been involved in launching balloons targeted at the DMZ and beyond. Due to the winds, the balloons tend to fall near the DMZ where there are mostly North Korean soldiers to see the leaflets.

  • As with the loudspeakers, balloon operations were mutually agreed to be halted between 2004 and 2010. It has been assessed that the activists' balloons may contribute to the decay of remaining cooperation between the Korean governments, and the DMZ has become more militarized in recent years

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In the ecological studies within the Korean Demilitarized Zone, it was discovered that after 56 years of isolation from human contact the DMZ currently contains numerous native and endangered wildlife species, pristine fresh water ecosystems, large mature forests, and healthy populations of marine life unlike anywhere else on the Korean peninsula.

  • As a result of these findings and the interests of creating better relations between North and South Korea there has been a proposal to convert the DMZ into a Peace Park.

  • This paper describes the political, economic and ecological benefits of creating a joint nature conservation programme between North and South Korea and it's obstacles that are preventing concrete nature conservation plans to progress.

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • A Peace Park is a conservation area that incorporates natural ecosystems along an international border into one management area by dropping border fences to allow for free movement of wildlife and people.

  • According to the Peace Parks Foundation (2009): "Peace parks are about co-existence between humans and nature, about promoting regional peace and stability, conserving biodiversity and stimulating job creation by developing nature conservation as a land-use option."

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The untouched area within the 907 square kilometer DMZ is composed of 75% forests, 20% grasslands 1% wetlands and marshes, 1% coastline and the rest is water and barren land.

  • These natural ecosystems are invaluable to the present and future populations of people within the Korean peninsula (especially since North and South Korea steadily rely on their own limited natural resources): the major 5 rivers and their water sheds have a significant potential for being a source of drinking water, the mature forests are significant for air purification, and the coastal habitats are important for fishing purposes.

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In addition, there is a wealth of biodiversity and wildlife populations found in the DMZ that represents flora and fauna from the rest of the peninsula. According to the South Korean Ministry of Environment, in their 2003 ecological survey of the DMZ they found 34% of plants, 12% of fish species, 71% of amphibians and reptiles, 51% of all birds, and 52% of all mammals that are found in Korea.

  • Some wildlife found in the DMZ is endangered or extinct in the rest of the DMZ. For example, 50% of the worlds 5,000 White-naped cranes and 25% of the worlds 2,500 Red-crowned cranes pass through the wetlands and marshes during the winter. The animals found within the DMZ that are considered National Monuments in South Korea are the Chinese water deer, leopard cat, amur goral, and the Korea- Okhotsk gray whale.

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In addition, opening the DMZ as a cultural and environmental conservation area is suggested to have a huge potential of improving the local economies through ecotourism and the related job opportunities.

  • There is a population of 23 million people in only the Seoul metropolitan area, which lies 45 kilometers from the DMZ, this Peace Park could serve. It has been compared to Yellowstone National Park, USA where after spending 40 million US dollars on labour and maintenance 1.5 billion US dollars is brought back in revenue.

  • There have not been any thorough studies, but there is a large wealth of natural resources that could be sustainably harvested to improve the economy including lumber, fishing, hunting, and arable land.

Peace and Nature Park

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In addition to sustainably protecting the natural environment and potentially improving economic affairs, a Peace Park could be established to promote better diplomacy and the strengthening of political ties similar to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park established along the US - Canadian border in 1932 and Morokulien which was established between Sweden and Norway to celebrate their long periods of friendship.

  • Due to the chronically poor relations between the DPRK and the ROK, establishing a Peace Park is hoped to extinguish the continuous friction between the two countries and to foster a safer and secure political future. Agreeing to pursue a mission together such as this would be a tremendous step towards peace between the two administrations.

Conclusion

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • In Converting the Demilitarized Zone into a nature conservation and Peace Park has gained huge support from international organizations such as UNEP and IUCN and prominent figures such as Koffi Anan, and Nelson Mandela because of the excellent condition of the ecosystem found within and the potential to work towards reconciliation between the ROK and DPRK.

  • However, there remains a number of issues that need to be resolved before a successful nature conservation and Peace Park strategy can be formalized. Most notably, local residents to the surrounding areas of the DMZ need to be consulted with to ensure their livelihoods are not threatened, security within the DMZ needs to be improved so that the threat of landmine detonation is minimized and dangers coming from the US, South Korea and North Korea military is diminished.

Conclusion

Korean Demilitarized Zone: Peace and Nature Park

  • The more free talks and relations need to be improved between North Korea and other concerned nations.

  • Perseverance and innovative problems solving are necessary to resolve these problems so that the land space within the DMZ can live up to its great potential of benefiting future populations of wildlife and future recreational and economic opportunities of the people from the DPRK and the ROK.