Plans for a ‘Peace City’

A short blurb in the Chosun Ilbo about Peace City.  I’ve never heard of the ‘Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements’.  They sound terribly important and lofty.  This, like the ‘Eco Peace Park’, could go either of two ways.  It could actually be really cool, honoring the history and providing an opportunity for real education.  Or it could be a commercial mess of Disney proportions, where rich people buy eco Chanel bags.  But probably, it’ll be both crassly commercial, and somberly educational.

Plans for ‘Peace City’ Complex to be Built Near DMZ

Under the new balanced regional development policy by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, plans are underway to build a common development and international peace zone in the area around the DMZ.

The peace complex proposal will be presented to the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements by November 2009, after which a feasibility study will be conducted.

Depending on progress in inter-Korean relations construction could begin after the year 2011.

Fashion Show in the DMZ Proposed

The Miss World Pageant may be held in South Korea in 2009.  And it’s being promoted as an event that would cultivate peace, and maybe even get North Korea to participate in the contest.

One of the events would be a fashion show in the DMZ, or, most likely, near it.

Here’s the key excerpt, and the link for the rest of the Korea Times article.

He pointed out that if Korea gets to host the pageant, it couldn’t serve better the purpose of promoting hope and peace.

The committee, established last year, has an ambitious plan: to get North Korea involved in Miss World in (South) Korea.

Jenny Thorn, a Miss World Korea representative, said the committee has in mind a plan to host a fashion show in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the sidelines of the main final show, which would be a tremendously influential window for North Koreans to see the world and vice versa.

“We can promote North Korea to the world. And who knows? We might start Miss North Korea?” Thorn said.

The ambassador agreed. “It will build a bridge in creating better atmosphere between South and North Korea.

Activist Balloonist in a Scuffle

The DMZ as a site of protest. A North Korean refugee attempted to launch balloons filled with leaflets denouncing Kim Jong Il. There were counter-protesters, and it got a little violent. But most of the violence seems to have been initiated by the leafletter.

I guess if i was a North Korean, fed a steady diet of Kim Jong Il worship my whole life, and later found what a repressive buffoon he actually was, then I’d be pissed off too. Desperate, even, to tell all the other North Koreans still stuck there, about the truth.

However, there’s no excuse for kicking people on the head, or threatening to shoot tear gas. Here’s some of the article from the Washington Post.

PAJU, South Korea, Dec. 2 — Park Sang Hak, a North Korean defector, launches balloons bound for his homeland. They carry leaflets accusing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il of being a drinker of pricey wine, a seducer of other men’s wives, a murderer, a slaveholder, a dictator and “the devil.”

The South Korean government says it wishes Park wouldn’t rain all this provocation on a heavily armed neighbor, but it says it is powerless to stop him. So about the only thing that usually stops Park’s balloons is a wind that won’t blow north.

But on Tuesday morning here at Paju, near the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, Park and his compatriots ran into a bunch of South Korean activists willing to fight to keep the balloons on the ground. Park’s anti-Kim leaflets, they shouted, were a threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Borders Closed

It’s official. The North Koreans halted the largely ceremonial freight train that shuttled between the Koreas, and shut down the Kaesong tours. But strangely enough, 1,200 of the 4,200 South Koreans were allowed to keep their border passes, thus letting them continue working in Kaesong.

So the net result of this border closing is:

• No longer using a train that really wasn’t used to transport goods. It was cheaper to do it by trucks. It was a symbolic daily ritual.
• Ceasing a tour that dangerously allowed wealthy South Koreans to be exposed to impoverished North Koreans in a real North Korean city.
• Fewer South Koreans allowed to work in Kaesong, but operations mostly intact, since this has been such an important source of cash for the North Koreans

Therefore, not much has changed except for the North Koreans creating pretexts to stop two activities they have wanted to stop all year.

More info from this Reuters article.

Kaesong City Tours

As December 1 approaches, and North Korea’s threat to close the border nears, there have been an increasing number of articles about Kaesong, the ancient Korean capital that is in North Korea. This AP article describes some of the details of the tour that would cease.

Along with the observations of the strict restrictions placed on tourists, are such tidbits as how much the tour costs (surprising cheap at about $100, with the recent devaluation of the won, which includes lunch), about the shops and sites that are accessible to the tourists. After the jump to read the article.

North Korea to Halt Border Crossings

North Korea has threatened to close the border on Dec. 1. Their main beef has been pamphleteering by South Korean organizations into the North. And they’ve just been grumpy in general ever since the election of Lee Myung Bak to the South Korean presidency.

The primary impacts would be:

• A probable shutdown of the Kaesong industrial complex in North Korea.
• No more South Korean tourists visiting Kaesong, an ancient capital city.
• Cutting off phone links inside Panmunjom, the village inside the DMZ, and the main point of communication between the Koreas.

There are two possible outcomes:

• The South Korean government places restrictions on groups from leafleting before December and the North Koreans keep the border open.
• Or the border is closed for a few weeks to show those South Koreans who’s boss. Then they’ll be reopened because the cash from the factories and the tour groups are important sources of national income.

My money’s on the 2nd outcome. We’ll see on December 1.

DMZ Ecosystem Study Commences

The regional governments got approval from the military to conduct research in the DMZ, from KBS Global.

1st Study on DMZ Ecosystem to Begin Mon.

The first comprehensive inspection on the ecosystem of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) will begin next week.

The Environment Ministry said Sunday that a joint team comprising some 20 officials from the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea and the Korea Forest Service will inspect six districts and cities, to gather information on the DMZ’s topography and animal habitats.

The five-day study will seek to provide an outline of measures on preserving the DMZ’s ecosystem. The ministry plans to use gathered data from the reserach on creating an ecological park near the heavily fortified zone and request UNESCO designation of the area as a biosphere reserve by 2012.

The ministry had been negotiating with the Defense Ministry and the U.N. Command since 2006 to conduct the inspection, and got a permit to do so in September.

Leaflet Operations

This is an informative opinion piece by Tong Kim, a Korea University professor, about leafleting. The most interesting part of the article is his own experience as a propagandist 40 years ago, when he was part of a government organized leafleting operation. He writes about how they researched what to write on the leaflets, testing them with defectors (answer: don’t insult Kim Il Sung), and how they used weather patterns, particularly the monsoon season, to maximize the spread of the leaflets.

His conclusions now are that South Korean private organizations shouldn’t leaflet anymore. Click for after the jump to read the Korea Times article.

DMZ Guestbook: October 2008

Not too many notable visits to the DMZ for October.

• Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister

October 29-31
Ivaylo Kalfin, Bulgaria’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs will arrive in Seoul next Wednesday to discuss ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

• More Inter-Korea Military Talks

October 27

The meeting will be held at the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine office on the western coast near the city of Paju at 10 a.m. Monday.

Army lieutenant colonels will represent the two sides in talks expected to touch on outstanding issues, including those related to changing the existing hotline system between the two countries. Pyongyang first proposed the talks Friday.

There are presently nine military hotlines, but one connection in the important western sector has been inoperable since May.

The two sides have since relied on other lines that run through the eastern coast, although most conversations have been limited to routine affairs like movements over the joint control area in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

The Defense Ministry said there is consensus on both sides on upgrading the hotline links, which can be used in emergency situations to prevent regional clashes from escalating into full-blown conflicts. However, there have been no detailed talks to change the communication link.

Some sources in the ministry said that the North may have called the meeting to protest moves by South Korean groups that have sent leaflets containing derogatory information about the North Korean leadership.

“South Korean representatives will be ready to discuss all contingencies and listen to what the North has to say,” a military spokesman said.

Last month, officials from the two Koreas met for the first inter-Korean military dialogue in eight months, but the talks ended abruptly without any significant progress after the North’s delegates warned of “grave consequences” for the spreading of propaganda leaflets by South Korean civic groups.  Korea Times

North Korean Solder Defects

Though there have been many defections from North Korea to South Korea, it’s unusual to have a defector who is a soldier, and even rarer for that defection to happen through the DMZ.  This is the 2nd such defection this year.  In April, an officer, which is even more unusual, crossed the DMZ.

Usually, soldiers, and particularly officers, have it pretty good in North Korea, comparatively speaking.   Even though that’s only 2 defections, they are the only 2 via the DMZ in a decade.  The risk of going through the heavily-guarded DMZ is great.  The repercussions for the soldiers’ families are also severe.  So these are serious sign of societal erosion in the North.

SEOUL, South Korea: A North Korean soldier has defected to South Korea through the heavily fortified border dividing the two countries, an official from the South’s spy agency said Tuesday.

It is the second such defection in a decade.

The North Korean defector was being investigated, a National Intelligence Service official said, declining to identify the defector’s name, rank or date of his defection.

The soldier recently approached a South Korean guard post in a central part of the Demilitarized Zone asking for asylum in the South, the NIS official said.

The soldier told South Korean officials he was frustrated by life in North Korea and concerned about his future in the communist country, the NIS official said. The official asked not to be named, citing the agency policy.

It would be the second defection in a decade across the border. A North Korean officer also defected to the South through the DMZ in April.

Defections across the border — one of the world’s most heavily armed — are rare. The vast majority of North Koreans fleeing their communist homeland travel by land through China and Southeast Asia before arriving in the South.

More than 14,300 North Koreans have arrived in the South since the Korean War, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.  AP via IHT.