Visual History of Korea
by: Hyungwon Kang

A line in the sand remains after 70 years

A chain-link fence starts from a sandy beach on Korea's eastern shore, splits into two barbed wire fences, and divides the Korean peninsula with a no-man’s land called the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

The landmine-filled DMZ, one of the world’s most heavily militarized areas, has a set of northern and southern fences covering a swathe of land approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide across the Korean Peninsula. The unfortunate strip of land stretches from the eastern shore to the waters of the West Sea. It is 223,360 acres where nobody farms, nobody builds communities, and nobody prospers.

Not an inch has moved either direction toward unification of Koreas since the ceasefire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. Neither have the leaders of two countries who maintain the temporary agreement that was never finalized.

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the cease-fire which ended more than three years - 1,129 days - of bloodshed in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, the bloodiest of all wars in Korea's history.

The Armistice, which settled the division of Korean Peninsula around the 38th Parallel north, was a status quo ante, almost the same as it existed before the start of the June 25, 1950 Korean War. South Korean President Syngman Rhee boycotted signing the armistice as he demanded nothing less than a full unification of the land.

The signatories of the Korean Armistice Agreement were U.S. Army Lieutenant General William Harrison Jr. and General Mark W. Clark, who represented the United Nations Command (UNC). North Korea's founding father Kim Il Sung and General Nam Il represented North Korea's People's Army (KPA). And Peng Dehuai represented the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).

All who signed the agreement, and President Rhee who didn't sign it, have since departed this world.

Peng Dehuai of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was a signatory of the armistice since PRC entered the Korean War in reciprocity for the contribution of Koreans in their successful Chinese revolution in 1949.

The Armistice recommended "within three (3) months after the Armistice Agreement is signed and becomes effective, a political conference of a higher level of both sides..." but that time has come and gone.

The two Koreas have had several rehearsals of reunification, including economic deals, cultural exchanges, joint North/South academic researches, and political summits during the past 70 years. But, without blessings from the three neighbors PRC, Russia, Japan and also the U.S., the prospect of cessation of the DMZ have always returned to the status quo.

South Korea's top trading countries, PRC, USA and Vietnam in that order. The trade does not include North Korea, the only other nation in the world that shares the same language with its southern brethren.

The two Koreas are not even talking to each other anymore.

The U.S., which ruled Korea from the end of World War II in 1945, through the launching of the Republic of Korea on August 15, 1948, left Korea. However, it abruptly returned to fight the advancing North Korea as part of the United Nations which had just been founded on October 24,1945, a date less than five years before the Korean War broke out.

The United Nations mustered 21 countries to partake in the Korean War in order to prevent the third World War: The U.S., UK, Canada, and Turkey were the top four nations who sent military personnel, with approximately 90% supplied by the U.S.

While the brutal hostile actions of the Korean War came to a halt, the war never technically ended. Frequent skirmishes occurred over the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), a snaking maritime line ambiguously drawn in the waters near the five islands in the West Sea.

The line in the sand from the east coast Goseong County in Gangwon State runs to the NLL in the water runs from the mouth of the Imjin River where it meets with the Han River from Seoul.

Gangwon State on the east coast has been divided into two parts, one in the North and a larger province in the South since the Korean War Armistice Agreement in 1953.

In the absence of will and determination to end the Korean War by all sides, the next Korean generation is about to assume this sad legacy of a divided land, a ceasefire in a war which they have never been a part of.

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