A walk into the Korean buffer zone border zone

TRAVEL

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
THE Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) is a buffer zone that separates north and south created in the 1950-1953 Korean war.
The DMZ is about 2km wide and runs along the 38 degrees parallel line along the Korean Peninsula of which the actual border is at the edge of the DMZ. Despite its name, it is perhaps one of the most heavily militarised borders in the world. The DMZ on the South Korean side is now a big tourism attraction where there are restaurants and gift shops.
There is also the Peace Bridge where prisoners of war of both sides crossed over to their respective sides after being captured by their enemies. DMZ is also the area when relatives separated during the war come and meet. There is now a train station at the DMZ from which you can get on a train and go to North Korea – Russia and the rest of Europe. There is a fence with ribbons, notes and photos left there by relatives of loved ones who died or went missing during the war.
At the DMZ , there are four tunnels that were reported to be built by the North Korean army to invade South Korea .These tunnels that can have about 30,000 soldiers entering them and coming out to invade Seoul were discovered in 1974,1975, 1978 and 1990. It is also said that there are about 20 other tunnels built which have not been found yet.
Some areas of the DMZ are also littered with mines and are no-go zone areas for tourists. The boundaries in the DMZ were also marked out with razor edge fences and there are heavy presence of armed South Korean soldiers.
I first heard of the Korean War in 1978 when my late father returned from Seoul after a business trip and told us about it saying the Koreans were always preparing for war and the streets of Seoul were so wide so that if war erupt again, war planes could land and take off anywhere in the city.
In May this year I went to the DMZ as part of the 2019 Jefferson Fellowship journalism programme on Global Migration and Public Sentiments. We arrived at the DMZ after traveling 44 kms from Seoul with a mixture of excitement and fear.
Prior to our departure from our hotel, our guide advised us not to whistle, shout or make hand signals like waving. As it can be misinterpreted as giving military signals. As journalists we always read news about the unstable situation of the Korean Peninsula. Upon arrival in the cold weather, our guide took us to a restaurant where we had hot breakfast while awaiting an official tourism bus to take us to the tunnels and to the Unification Hill.
And everything was on timely intervals and when the bus came, we drove for about five minutes up the mountains to where one of the tunnels was and is open for tourists to enter. Prior to entering the tunnels, we were first shown a 15-minute black-and-white documentary on the war which was terrible. We were sad to see the indiscriminate mass killing of villagers, wide spread burning of villages, water buffalos slaughtered and streams of villagers escaping from North Korean soldiers carrying what they can carry.
One scene that really startled me was that of a six-year-old boy crying hysterically over a dead woman, probably his mother as if seeking help from anyone to wake her up.
After that orientation movie, we were taken to one of the tunnels. The three other tunnels are off bounds to tourists. Prior to entering the tunnel we were given the rules; we were prohibited from taking our cameras and mobile phone into the tunnel. We were told to leave our belongings in individual cabinets and given keys to them.
We were then given hard hats (safety hats) and then we were allowed to enter the tunnel which is 78 meters under the stony mountain. It was a back-aching walk down the tunnel with lights and air condition for fresh air while walking through the tunnel with about 180cm high at the tallest point and 165cm at its and tall people like me had to bend backwards walking for a long distance. But it was good that we wore hard hats to avoid a painfull hit on the head if one doesn’t duck in time.
The tunnel goes down about 500 meters from the South Korean side and you have to descend a slope for about 100 meters before going further into the tunnel to the spot where the digging by the North Korean soldiers stopped. And it was very cold down there and the stony tunnel and at the side was about two meters wide so you can pass people retuning.
And under the tunnel there are some areas where you can get on small trains to explore some other areas which to me were very scary. The water was also icy cold dripping from the roof and at the side of the tunnel. After a walk of about 30 minutes which seemed an eternity for me, we finally reached the spot where the North Koreans stopped digging. It has now been sealed off.
There are surveillance cameras located at the spot now for security reasons as the tunnel still continues into the North Koreans side. Before the surveillance camera were installed, South Korean soldiers used to be station at that spot. To admit I was very tired with backache after coming out of the tunnel.
After touring the tunnel we got on the bus and drove for another five minutes up to the Unification Hill where there were rows of binoculars for tourists to see beyond the DMZ to see activities in the North Korean side of the border.
After that we went for another five minutes’ drive to Jangdankong village in the DMZ and you have to go through rigorous military checks at which you must have your passports for soldiers to check.
The DMZ is now a tourist attraction. But it is a scar left by the terrible Korean War that killed three million people. Technically, both countries are still at war as they had only signed a truce which didn’t meant that the war has ended.
But South Korea is now one of the top industrialised countries after coming out of the horrors of war.