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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

By JEAN H. LEE Associated Press Writer

KAESONG, North Korea—For months, tours of this historic city—famed for its Buddhist temples, royal tombs and ancient relics—have given South Koreans a glimpse of life in the hidden communist North.

But North Korea officials announced Monday that these visits were being suspended starting Dec. 1 because of tensions with Seoul—not that they were that truly welcoming anyway: On a weekend visit, cell phones, laptops and cameras with telephoto lenses were locked away even before the tour bus left South Korean territory.

Travelers were warned not to speak to ordinary North Koreans, not to criticize the government or to ask about the health of Kim Jong Il. And no souvenirs depicting the Dear Leader, a South Korean guide warned.

“Don’t bring back red items or any of that North Korean propaganda—I know foreigners love to buy propaganda,” she said.

The moment the bus passed from South to North on Saturday, South Korean tourists broke out in applause. At immigration, North Korea’s de facto theme song for reconciliation—”Nice to Meet You”—played over and over on a loudspeaker as travelers endured yet another security check.

As the bus ambled into Kaesong with two new North Korean guides aboard, soldiers stood guard at intervals along the route, a lone figure in a brown field or on an empty dirt road, red flag at the ready to wave at an errant tourist snapping a photo from the bus window with a small camera. If the flag had been raised, the entire convoy would have stopped and the illicit photo ordered deleted from the camera.

For many on board, it was their first trip to reclusive North Korea, a country that is run with absolute authority by the autocratic Kim. And for many, it was their first meeting with North Koreans. The guide, a Kaesong native, was witty and warm as he told tourists about the history of the capital known as Songdo, “the City of Pine Trees,” at one point serenading them with Korea’s most famous folk song, “Arirang” and teasing them with jokes—a scene perhaps unthinkable a decade ago.

He also displayed a keen interest in President-elect Barack Obama, inquiring about the Democrat’s stance on U.S.-North Korea relations. “I see no reason why the two countries should be so far apart if the U.S. policy changes,” he said. “It would be better if the two countries were friendly in the future.”

Though restrictive, the tours have been immensely popular among South Koreans since they began a year ago, with more than 110,000 tourists piling onto buses for the day long visit to a city just 40 miles from Seoul but inaccessible for nearly 60 years.

North Korea’s announcement Monday that the tours will be suspended has heightened fears that 10 years of progress in improving ties between the wartime rivals may be in danger of unraveling.

Another joint project, tours to Diamond Mountain on North Korea’s east coast, have been suspended since July following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist. And the communist country, in detailing plans to restrict cross-border traffic next week amid deteriorating ties with Seoul’s conservative government, said it would also suspend inter-Korean rail lines.

Kaesong, Korea’s cultural and religious centerpiece before power shifted to Seoul in the 14th century, has a rich heritage and military history. During the three-year Korean War, control of Kaesong—located in the heart of the peninsula—was traded back and forth as the front shifted. When fighting stopped in 1953, Kaesong fell just north of the border.

Among those born in the north who longed to return home was the late founder of the conglomerate Hyundai Asan Corp. In 1998, Chung Ju-yung ceremoniously crossed the border with hundreds of cattle—repayment, he said, for stealing money from selling the family cow to pay his way to Seoul so many decades earlier.

His firm struck an agreement to start tours to Diamond Mountain, a resort just north of the border that later grew to include a golf course, spa, hotels and a theater featuring North Korean acrobats.

Nearly 2 million tourists flocked to Diamond Mountain before the July shooting by a North Korean soldier brought the tours to a halt amid a stalemate over the investigation.

In December 2007, Hyundai Asan unveiled the Kaesong tour to see the famed Bakyeon waterfall, a Buddhist temple dating back to the 11th century, and a stone bridge where a bloody murder led to the fall of Koryo Dynasty in 1392.

The tour focuses on the heritage of a city with deep Buddhist roots and a royal history, as well as a sophisticated metropolis that produced brassware and porcelain and was famous for wine and ginseng.

Tourists were allowed no interaction with locals, apart from those working at tourist sites, and guides kept an eagle eye on any visitors who strayed from the group or tried to photograph the city center.

Downtown Kaesong—visible from the bus window—was abuzz Saturday with people of all ages on bicycles and on foot, many with packages tucked into baskets, and scarves around their necks to ward off an early chill. Children scampered along a tree-lined canal, some swinging their mothers’ hands, others linked arm in arm with friends as they waved at sightseers.

A billboard in a central plaza depicted Kim Jong Il and his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. Down the street, a massive statue of the elder Kim looked down on Kaesong from atop a hill, but the tour bus sped past.

Pharmacies, salons, motels and shops were housed in concrete buildings with faded, peeling paint. Cables hung limply on telephone poles but there were no phones in sight, and unlike Seoul, where even some 5-year-olds have their own cell phones, there was never the sound of a phone ringing.

A fish market appeared closed and a noodle restaurant was boarded up. There was no running water in the toilets or sinks, even at tourist spots.

“Kaesong seems like it is a nice place to live, but the living situation seems like it’s more difficult than when I was young,” said Oh Tae-jin, 49, a South Korean on the tour with his family.

Snacks sold at tourist sites included a bag of crackers for $3—U.S. dollars are the currency of choice in Kaesong—a North Korean cola for $2 and a box of tea for $10, roughly 10 times the average monthly wage in North Korea.

Lunch is included in the tour’s 198,000-won cost—about $130—with roughly half going to North Korea, according to Hyundai Asan. The 13-course feast in a traditional house in Kaesong’s elegantly restored old town includes fish, beef, lamb and ginseng-infused whiskey for an extra $20 a bottle.

Back in downtown Kaesong, a lone warden stood in an intersection directing traffic: bicycles, modern buses and the rare car. A patriotic sign declared: “As long as the Dear Leader is alive, we will win!”

But as the tour buses rumbled past fields lying fallow and toward a gleaming new industrial park with its banks, convenience stores and imported traffic signals, it was clear the price Kaesong may pay for being caught in the political crossfire of deteriorating relations between Pyongyang and Seoul.

“If even the Kaesong tour stops now, it would be unfortunate,” the tourist Oh said. “It would seem like the North-South relationship—which has been moving forward for 10 years—is moving backward.”

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.

Associated Press By KWANG-TAE KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea ratcheted up its threats to sever ties with South Korea by announcing Wednesday that it will halt cross-border traffic next month and cut telephone lines inside the demilitarized zone over what it calls Seoul’s confrontational stance.

The North’s military is taking action to “restrict and cut off all the overland passages” across the frontier beginning Dec. 1, the country’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

Relations between the two Koreas have deteriorated since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s conservative government took over in February, pledging to get tough with Pyongyang. North Korea has stepped up the rhetoric against the South in recent weeks, warning that it will attack South Korea and reduce it to “debris” if Seoul continues what it says are confrontational activities against the communist country.

Inter-Korean relations “are at the crucial crossroads of existence and total severance,” KCNA said Wednesday.

The KCNA report did not say how long the border ban would remain in place. Prohibiting passage through the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas primarily would affect South Korean firms operating factories in an inter-Korean business complex in Kaesong, and would halt popular tours to the ancient city just across the border in the North.

Another joint Korean project in the North — tours to one of Korea’s most famous sites, Diamond Mountain — has been stalled since the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist in July.

Diamond Mountain and Kaesong had served as prominent symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation on the divided peninsula.

South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said the North’s threat to close the crossings would have a negative influence on reconciliation efforts.

Later Wednesday, the North’s Red Cross issued a strident statement saying it would shut down its liaison office inside the DMZ, and cut off all direct phone links inside the DMZ village, Panmunjom.

The North did not specify whether it had already taken those measures — or if not, when it would do so. The two Koreas are linked by nine military hot lines, though some are now out of service for technical reasons.

The Red Cross statement condemned Seoul for sponsoring a U.N. resolution criticizing Pyongyang’s human rights condition.

“North Korea’s move is aimed at pressuring South Korea to shift its policy toward the North,” said Qiao Yuzhi, a North Korea expert at Peking University who is visiting Seoul. He said the North is likely to carry out its threat temporarily, calling it a short-term tactic.

South Korean tour operator Hyundai Asan Corp. said it has not received any notification from the North about halting its year-old program offering tours of Kaesong. More than 100,000 tourists, mostly South Koreans, have toured Kaesong — a city that served as the capital of the ancient Koryo Dynasty that ruled Korea from 918 to 1392 and changed hands repeatedly during the 1950-53 Korean war.

Kaesong is home to some 88 South Korean factories employing about 35,000 North Korean workers. Currently, about 1,600 South Koreans also live and work in Kaesong, and an average of 200 South Koreans visit Kaesong daily, according to Hyundai Asan and the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

“There is no sign of tensions here and our factory is working normally,” Kang Mi-wha, a South Korean manager at footwear maker Samduk Stafild, told The Associated Press by telephone from Kaesong.

The joint industrial complex has been a key source of hard currency for the impoverished North.

The move comes at a time of heightened tension between the two Koreas. Last month, the North warned that it would expel South Koreans from Kaesong if propaganda leaflets critical of Pyongyang keep floating across the border. The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to stop decades of propaganda warfare, but South Korea says it cannot stop activists from sending leaflets into North Korea by balloon.

“Such (a) stand and attitude are leading to the grave, wanton violation of all the north-south agreements,” the KCNA report said.

A week ago, North Korean Lt. Gen. Kim Yong Chol inspected the Kaesong complex, and asked South Korean workers how long it would take for them to pull out, the South Korean government said.

Kim, the chief North Korean delegate to previous military talks with the South, informed his South Korean counterpart Wednesday of the decision to restrict border travel, KCNA said.

Seoul denies taking a hard-line stance toward the North. Unification Ministry spokesman Kim said South Korea respects the spirit of deals reached at two Korean summits held in 2000 and 2007. “We are willing to consult in detail,” he told reporters.

The two Koreas fought a brutal three-year war that ended in 1953 in a truce, not a peace treaty. The two Koreas, technically still at war, remain divided by one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders.

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.

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

The North Korean People’s Army (KPA) has strongly reacted to balloon-born leaflets from the South dropping on their side across from the Demilitarized Zone.

The mode of leaflet dissemination and its content readily remind me of the psychological warfare campaign that the United Nations Command (UNC) in Korea aggressively conducted in the mid 1960s. The difference now is it’s led by a small, determined group of North Korean defectors.

In protest, the KPA’s representative has met twice in October with his ROK Army counterpart at working level meetings of the inter-Korean military talks, demanding that the South Korean government stop the civic organization’s leaflet operations. These propaganda leaflets demonize North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a “devilish killer” and effectively exploit the North’s economic vulnerability.

The North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) ― through which North Korean propagandists often vilify President Lee Myung-bak as a “national traitor” ― have issued a consistent warning several times already that if the leaflet dissemination does not stop, the North may have to suspend the joint project at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. The North Koreans do not always make good on their word, but their warnings reflect their views on the prospect of inter-Korean relations.

The North Koreans are silent about their bellicose verbal attacks on President Lee and conservative groups in the South. Psychological warfare has resumed between the propagandists in Pyongyang and the North Korean defectors in Seoul, who Pyongyang believes to be acting with the support of the government of the South.

The revival of mutual slander and psychological operations are clearly in violation of the agreement of its suspension in the 1992 Basic North-South Agreement, its confirmation in the 2000 inter-Korean summit agreement and a specific agreement by the inter-Korean military generals meeting in June 2004 to cease all leaflet and loudspeaker operations in the DMZ,

Speaking of the efficacy of leaflet operations, the KPA’s reaction thus far is a good measurement of feedback. The leaflet designers are people who lived in the North and are well aware of the psychological vulnerabilities of their target audience ― food and energy shortages are probably the most real source of the targets’ dissatisfaction. The North Korean defectors also know the language of the target audience ― terms and spellings that are different from those that are used in the South.

In the 1960s I was in charge of leaflet production for the UNC, which was interested in leaflet operations because of the difficulty of reaching North Koreans by broadcasts as their radios were all fixed to receive North Korean broadcasts only, and not many radios capable of receiving broadcast on short wave were available in the North. Psychological operations were not prohibited under the Armistice Agreement of 1953.

Today there are about 14,000 North Korean defectors living in the South. But in those days there were only a few dozen people who came to the South after the end of the Korean War. They included KPA defectors crossing over the DMZ and North Korean spies who either surrendered or were captured after infiltration. We took prototype leaflets ― complete with written and graphic messages ― to a panel of North Korean defectors and agents to hear how they would react to those leaflets if they had been still in the North. Their contributions were reflected in the final leaflet product.

This pre-test was an integral part of strategic leaflet production along with a target analysis based on available intelligence and a thematic exploitation of identifiable target vulnerabilities. In those days, any direct attack on Kim Il-sung was deemed to be counterproductive. Contrary to Western views, we found that Kim Il-sung was regarded by the people in the North truly as a “great leader.” This was a core belief of the North Koreans at the time.

So instead, we tried to stress the benefits of freedom and democracy to influence the attitude of our audience positively toward the South, while discrediting Pyongyang’s political propaganda claims that South Korea was a “puppet of U.S. imperialism” and that South Koreans were struggling to survive under “control of U.S. occupation.” this was 40 years ago.

As for the method of leaflet dissemination, the UNC utilized “high altitude dissemination” not “leaflet bombs” by which millions of leaflets are released from huge military aircraft flying over 30,000 feet in altitude along the DMZ. Leaflets traveled according to wind currents, reaching as far as Pyongyang. The most favorable weather conditions for high altitude dissemination were around the monsoon season in Korea, when strong winds blow towards the North. The best-traveling leaflets were approximately 3” x 6.5” in size and weighed 16lbs in total.

The UNC was not directly involved in balloon operations, which were carried out by the ROK Army in addition to the ROK’s loudspeaker broadcasts towards North Korean soldiers. Apparently, the defectors group is using an effective balloon method of leaflet drops, using helium and timed fuses.

As the KCNA complained, their leaflets have reached the vast areas of Hwanghae Province and Gangwon Province along the DMZ, but their leaflet sizes ― 8.5” x 11” and 5” x 7” ― have the least effective dimensions for traveling.

The question is whether we should go back to the old days of confrontation and malicious propaganda at a time when the political environment has changed so much on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere in the region. Competition between the North and the South has long been over.

Pyongyang is reacting to inadvertent statements of South Korean officials ― including the defense minister who said “we should not spoil Kim Jong-il” by showing too much attention to his health conditions. Pyongyang is ratcheting up its belligerent reaction to Seoul’s talk of OPLAN 5028 to prepare for a “sudden collapse of” or a “possible coup” against its regime, and the consequences of an incapacitated Kim Jong-il or his eventual absence.

The KPA has always been sensitive to joint U.S.-ROK deterrent efforts ― either through combined military exercises, defense ministerial meetings, or the ROK’s acquisition of new weapons, which is expected to increase with the recently upgraded status of South Korea to that of the NATO plus three nations. The KPA now says the “South Korean war-hawks announced a preemptive strike as a basic mode of attack” against the North, blustering that its own “advanced preemptive strike capability, more powerful than nuclear weapons, would reduce the South to ashes.”

Seoul’s Unification Ministry seems to try to move in the right direction by discouraging leaflet drops. It is time for both sides to stop mutual slander and for the defector group not to attack the North Korean leader directly. Suspension of leaflet operations and the resumption of tourism to Mt. Geumgang seem to be the first steps to reducing tension between the North and South. What’s your take?

Tong Kim is a research professor with the Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He can be reached at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.

• 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

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.