IUFRO Conference - Seoul, Korea (2)

After sitting through 2 days of the conference (and some VERY boring presentations) I decided to make the most of being in Seoul and opted for a day off of sitting around for a tour to the DeMiliterized Zone a.k.a. the DMZ. Even though I got away from boring forestry stuff, I managed to have some interesting forestry stuff on the tour. I sat next to a retired US Forest Service guy for the whole day and we had some great conversations - so I wasn't entirely un-academic for the day :-)...

Now for those of you not familiar with the history of the Koreas some of this may be a bit new and bizarre. The Korean War lasted 3 years from 1950-1953, and there is still only an armistice, not a peace agreement between the countries. In fact, South Korea was not even present at the negotiating table for the armistice, the US did it for them. A new thing I learned on the tour that seems a bit strange to me. In the time since the 1953 armistice the relationship between the Koreas has run hot and cold.

The DMZ is at the 38th parallel and I think there is a 2.5 km buffer (it might be 2 km) on either side of the border line in each country. In an area near the 38th parallel there is an building, called Pamunjon in the Joint Security Area and it is here that negotiations between the two countries often occurs. The main meeting room is exactly half in each country. It is also the location where the scant family reunions have taken place over the years, of which there may be a new round in the near future. There are also I believe some UN troops stationed there to keep things calm. Some tours go all the way to Pamunjon, but it takes a little more advanced planning to be on one of these tours I think. Tours to the civilian control area of the DMZ in S. Korea, where I went, have been available only in the last 5-6 years.

In the map below (if you double click on it you can see it bigger) you can see Panmun station. There is a railroad line connecting the countries now (more on that later). The last station in S. Korea is Dorasan.













I was on a big tour bus for this tour and from the moment the tour bus gets into the civilian control area that is south of the South Korean buffer zone with the DMZ tour guides are on a time limit of I think 2 hours. Entrance into the civilian control zone is very restricted, we had to all have our passports with us, and were not allowed to take any pictures from the bus. In fact, we were not allowed to take pictures in very many places at all.

The first stop once inside the civilian control area was to the South Korea end of one of the tunnels that North Korea has dug under the entire DMZ (thats 4-5 km remember) into the South. So far the South Koreans have found 4 of these tunnels but they think there could be up to 15-20 others that they have not found yet. As Seoul is only about 50 km from the border with N. Korea it seems that at some point N. Korea built these tunnels in order to have a supporting ground force of troops to whatever aerial attack they had in mind. Crazy and very interesting, but no pics, sorry!

Stop 2 was at an observatory that on a nice day one can see all the way to a small village in N. Korea (which is a sort of model village to prove the North is doing just fine economically thank you very much!). The guide said at night the only light you can see in that village is the lighting around the statue of Kim Jeong Il (the president/ruler of N. Korea).

Unfortunately for me, the weather was terrible that day and you couldn't see much of anything. Nonetheless, strict rules about photos were in full effect - rather than a photo of grey sky I took a photo of the photo line :-). There were soldiers there watching us every second so if you take a picture in a place you should not you can get into some REAL trouble...















Stop 3 on the DMZ tour was Dorasan Station. This is the last station in South Korea on the train line. The photo below tells the story of the railroad reopening in short in 2003.










To get to this station you must have made prior arrangements and have ID with you. And there is nothing to do once you get there. My guess is that the only ones who use it are those few small S. Korean villages in the civilian control area when they want to go to Seoul... only a few trains a day go there I think.

The train line used to be used more frequently for reaching the factories that S. Korea built in N. Korea during a time of warmer relations, perhaps during Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy period, I am not sure.

In any case, this next photo I think encapsulates the desire of the South Koreans to have one whole country again.















The likelihood of this happening soon is both unlikely and would be an economic responsibility of immense proportions. It is a cost that the world (I think) will have to support, many times more costly than the re-joining of East and West Germany by most estimates. Not to mention the security concerns and likelihood of a rush of immigration toward China or S. Korea. It may happen in my lifetime, I don't know but I will be curious for the day when this train to Pyongyang is not only operating - but freely accessible to the general public... I would hop on for a look-see if it happens for sure!