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The Panmunjom circus
By
Tom Tobback
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
BEIJING - On
July 27, it was exactly 50 years ago that the Korean War
came to an end with the signing of the Armistice
Agreement by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK), China, and the US-led United Nations Command
(UNC). In the DPRK on Sunday mass celebrations were held
to commemorate the victory in the fatherland liberation
war. Meanwhile on the South side, US General Leon
LaPorte stated in Panmunjom, the village where the
armistice was signed, that the document represents
nothing short of victory. These claims illustrate that
during 50 years of non-war, nothing much has changed. Or
has it?
While the US forces did their utmost
during the ceremonies to stress the UN alliance against
the "communist aggression", actually most of the 21
nations that came to defend South Korea under the UN
flag have fundamentally altered their relationship with
the DPRK over the past 50 years. Most of them now have
diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. Prime Minister
Helen Clark of New Zealand, which established diplomatic
relations with the DPRK in 2001, was allowed to make a
speech at the ceremony in Panmunjom, but her call for a
peaceful solution to the present nuclear crisis
contrasted sharply with LaPorte's memories of the
glorious past and a confident future.
When
LaPorte presented a UN flag to Clark and retired South
Korean General Paek Sun-yop as a gift, Pyongyang must
have been outraged. The simple fact that the Soviet
Union was absent from the UN Security Council in 1950 in
protest against the exclusion of communist China has
allowed the United States to continue to use the UN
cover for 50 years. This has generated the strange
contradiction that countries part of the Armistice
Agreement, and thus still technically at war with the
DPRK, already have established diplomatic relations with
Pyongyang. This paradox proves that the only countries
that really matter in the UNC are the United States and
the Republic of Korea (ROK). Ironically the DPRK has
also been a member of the UN since 1991, when it joined
at the same time as the ROK.
But of course these
ceremonies were all about the war veterans, aged 70 or
more nowadays. They feel proud of having contributed to
prevent a third world war, and enabled the Republic of
Korea to become what it is today, a thriving democracy
respected around the world. To their convenience they
often forget that for many years after the war, South
Korea was much poorer than the North, and that Seoul
only started to catch up economically during the 18
years of military dictatorship under Park Chung-hee.
Hundreds of South Koreans died in their struggle for
democracy, while the UNC was guarding the country
against the communists.
The truce village of
Panmunjom reminds some visitors of an amusement park,
and it certainly looked like one during the ceremonies
on Sunday. American rock music and stalls selling
armistice merchandise welcomed us in the Joint Security
Area. US veterans and their family members dressed in
all colors of the rainbow were in the majority. After
the speeches we were offered a lavish buffet in the main
building 20 meters from the Military Demarcation Line,
and some US soldiers encouraged us to take food outside
so the North Korean soldiers could watch us eating.
"Only the elite serves here," the US sergeant had
proudly told us on the bus.
Whereas the exact
circumstances of the start of the Korean War 53 years
ago will remain a point of discussion, it is clear today
that a peace treaty - recommended in the original
Armistice Agreement to be signed within three months -
is long overdue. It is sad that celebrating 50 years of
status quo has not been an incentive to the other UNC
members to urge the US to negotiate such a peace treaty
with Pyongyang, or, in case Washington continues its
confrontational stance, to withdraw formally from the
UNC.
Tom Tobback is the creator and
editor of Pyongyang Square, a website
dedicated to providing independent information on North
Korea.
(Copyright 2003 Tom Tobback.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
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