34 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 25 2010
Korea’s border tells a sorry
One is the most isolated country in the
world, the other is a thriving democratic
and industrialised nation.
Finbarr Bermingham travels to the
border between North and South Korea
and finds a country still torn apart at its
very heart
T
HERE are few places in the
world as cloaked in secrecy
as North Korea; we know
little about it, and the scraps
we are left to speculate on
only serve to pique our interest.
It has long been considered the
world’s most isolated state, given to
a severe distrust of foreigners and a
tendency to act spontaneously and
irrationally.
Kim Jong Il, the country’s reclusive
premier, is often caricatured as a
cognac-swigging megalomaniac.
Even south of the border that
scythes the peninsula in two, he is
sometimes painted as a comedy
villain: a volatile cocktail of the
dangerous and the ridiculous. But
on the now rare occasion that ‘Dear
Leader’ puffs out his chest, he
leaves little room for joking.
The sinking of the Cheonan warship
in March resulted in the deaths of
46 South Korean seaman.
Pyongyang has, of course, denied
any involvement, but an
independent investigation
confirmed that a North Korean
torpedo was responsible.
Access to the North is tighter than
ever. These days, even a fleeting
glimpse will do, which is why trips
to the border are big business, even
in times as troubled as these.
“I used to run tours into North
Korea all the time,” boasts our tour
guide.
“But a lady got shot by a North
Korean soldier a couple of years
ago. We can’t go there anymore.”
On a bus headed towards the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between
North and South, these words offer
little comfort.
He assures me with a smile that we
are in no danger. After all, it is the
most heavily fortified border in the
world. But driving past a
checkpoint that marks the
beginning of the Civilian Control
Point, it’s difficult to dispel a sense
of eeriness.
There are no buildings or cars, save
a few rusted tractor shells. Rice
paddies roll out to meet the
horizon, but there are no farmers in
sight.
The steeple of a church protrudes
over the treetops, corroded and
obsolete; a relic of a once bustling
society, devastated by a ferocious
and often forgotten war 60 years
ago.
Twenty-one Westerners, travelling
from Seoul, have been struck dumb
by the landmine warnings on
fences.
The date is September 11. Seven
thousand miles away a rogue
American preacher is threatening to
burn a pile of Korans in protest at a
proposed mosque at Ground Zero.
It’s hard not to think that we are
entering another Ground Zero,
away from the media glare.
The growing Western population in
South Korea has sparked huge
interest in the DMZ and there are
numerous tours you can take.
Ours goes to the Second Tunnel, so
called because it was the second
time South Korea uncovered the
North trying to dig their way in.
It is just north of Cheorwon, once
the sixth largest city in all of Korea,
now more akin to a Bronze Age
settlement, having been razed to
the ground by the ravages of war.
It’s less commercialised than some
of the more glamorous routes.
The third, for instance, has an
amusement park. There are no such
high jinks here. There is a heavy
military presence, but the soldiers
are happy to pose for photographs,
seemingly content to while away
their mandatory military service in
relative obscurity.
The threat of all out attack is
minimal, but this gaping cavity in
the ground serves as a reminder, if
it were needed, of what might have
been.
It was discovered in 1975, almost 18
months after a South Korean
soldier heard an explosion
underground, and over 20 years
after the armistice of 1953.
Intercepted 1.1 kilometres into
South Korean land, the tunnel had
the potential to pour 16,000 troops
per hour over the border.
This figure seems absurd as I whack
my head off one of the broad
stalactites near the entrance.
Hunchbacked for the rest of the
way, the imagery conjured by
spending even a few minutes in this
place is striking.
Cold, dark, damp and cramped;
conditions for the soldiers was
treacherous. At its lowest point of
145 metres, the silence is deafening.
And to think: they dug, hacked and
blew their way through 3.5
kilometres of this. There are
believed to be 20 tunnels similar to
this one. They have only uncovered
four.
A sign greets us on the outside,
counting the days since the
ceasefire: 20,886. The South have a
long history of appeasing North
Korea and with this sign, they seem
to be turning a blind eye once
more, for the latest impingement on
the armistice was one of many.
The bus pulls in at the Cheorwon
Peace Observatory, the last outpost
of South Korean civilization. A
statue of Buddha is accompanied
by one of Our Lady. It seems there
is little to do in a place like this but
watch and pray, but the latter may
have to wait: the views from the
Observatory are spectacular.
The DMZ begins just in front of the
tower and flanks the border, two
kilometres on each side.
The zone itself is the most thriving
nature reserve I’ve seen in half a
year spent travelling around Korea,
involuntary as it may be.
It is home to over 1,000 rare
species of plants and animals,
flourishing due to the lack of
human contact. There are
travel WEEKEND
rumoured to be Korean tigers, ■ SCARS OF WAR:
Amur leopards and Asiatic black A ruined locomotive,
bears, but they clearly chose to set bound for Pyongyang
up home elsewhere along the 250
kilometre border. Instead, we make
do with voyeuristic and fascinating
vistas of North Korea.
The polarity is stunning. On the
South side, agriculture reigns with
the paddy fields peppered with
celebratory pinks and yellows. In
this densely populated nation, not
an inch is wasted.
Any arable land is fully exploited;
symbolic of the efficiency which
has marked their exponential
economic ascent of the past 20
years. And on the North? Nothing.
The forestry of the DMZ
instantaneously vanishes. Military
hues of grey, brown and dark green
dominate the bleak and barren
landscape.
Anything living has been flattened
to hinder any attempts at defecting
to the South.
If you believe everything you read,
then this is exactly what you would
have expected, yet the grim reality
laid out before me is still shocking.
There are long, meandering brown
bunkers set in the hills where
soldiers had taken up position
years before. A plume of smoke
rises over a small hill, where some
North Korean soldiers have made a me has been known since 1953 as peppered with bullet holes and lain
fire. To be so close to arguably the White Horse Hill, due to the shape up on its side, a rusted mess.
most secluded place on earth is it has resembled from the sky since A trip to the DMZ is a startling
surreal. 1952, when 275,000 bombs were experience.
The outline of a North Korean army dropped on it, blowing huge chunks War has such omnipotence these
base can be made out on a hill. The off its summit and killing over days and we are hardened against
guide points to a dot in the 30,000 soldiers on both sides. its reportage.
distance, saying it is a propaganda We return to the campsite via the I returned with my perspective
village, really uninhabited but built Labor Party Building, where Stalin repaired, war is always brutal and
at expense in the 1950s to anointed Kim Il Sung as leader of almost always avoidable.
encourage South Korean defection. the Communist Party. It, too, is Nobody knows for sure how many
They may have had a case before ramshackle. people died (estimates range from
1980, when the North was actually It’s possible to trace the path of the two to 10 million), but whilst the
more prosperous. But now, stuck in tanks up to the building and follow rest of the world moves on to new
a bygone era of farming and the track of their shells to the point battles, the scars of the Korean War
recovering from the devastation of of entry. will remain on this peninsula
famine, the country is said to be on We also see the remnants of a forever: carved into the hills and
its knees. locomotive bound for Pyongyang, borne by the thousands of families
The jagged mountain top in front of 200 kilometres to the North, irreparably torn apart.