South Korea: Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Joint Security Area (JSA): Tourist Info

I had a friend who, perhaps some time in 2005, had the opportunity to go with a delegation of what I understood to be Korean diplomats to Korea for a week after showing them around Washington, DC for a week. During this visit, he had the opportunity to go to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, including the Joint Security Area (JSA) where the accord establishing the zone was signed and where visitors can actually cross into North Korea.

Until my arrival in Seoul, I did not know that this was something that any tourist can actually do. But I also did not know that it requires more advanced planning than the five days or so that my friend and I had when we arrived. Although visits to the DMZ are pretty easy to arrange through various companies – not only heading up to the zone but also visiting one of the underground tunnels built apparently to effect a surprise attack upon Seoul by the North – but arranging a visit to include the JSA is a bit more difficult. The main reason seems to be that this part of the border can only accept a certain number of visitors on any one day, and once it reaches the limit for visitors the area is shut down for further visitors until another day where the quota is not reached. This is true for any booking agency because it is a top-down decision, so it does not matter which agency you call or harass: once the number is reached, no one else can book travel up there.

Although the tunnel and rest of the DMZ certainly would have made for an interesting visit, my friend and I decided to forego the visit if we would be unable to also go to the JSA.

As for what we learned which will make you all the wiser about visiting the JSA: The USO runs tours to the region which can probably be booked online. We met a Canadian national who’d booked a tour through the USO which included the JSA, and he had booked about a month or two months earlier. So if planning a trip to Seoul, be sure to build this booking into your pre-trip planning to ensure that you have a chance to head up to the JSA. Also, the USO tour seems to be the best one in terms of price: with a cost around US$ 44 (or about 70,000 won at this point) this is a great deal. Other tours than run to the JSA cost about 80,000 won just for the JSA, and then to do a full-day combined tour (including one of the surprise attack tunnels) the cost jumps to around 130,000 won (about US$ 100). The USO tour does all of these at the lower price.

Besides the DMZ, I’ll probably also say a few words here about the whole situation between North and South Korea. Arriving in Korea I really did not have any idea about the nature of the North/South conflict, what caused it, what resulted, and how the relationship was between the two countries. But having visited the memorials and museums, a pretty clear picture has emerged. My overarching comment is that the Korean War, taking place mostly in the early 1950s, is really a product of a combination of economic, military, international relations, historical, wartime (WWII) and political forces. All of these together seemed to create, exacerbate and abate the conflict at various points, which underscores for me the importance of really having a good knowledge of all of these fields and their interaction when studying this conflict and probably any conflict. I was not aware of this previously. In a nutshell from what I can remember, Japan occupied Korea prior to the Korean War and I think during the time of World War II. After the Japanese were defeated, Korea was split between the USSR and the United States in order to maintain order and prepare the country for self-governance after its liberation. One question that I had when learning this and the aftermath is, how could the large powers have ever thought that, by developing such different systems between North and South Korea by the division, they could have easily unified Korea in the end rather than causing two Koreas to come about at the end of the occupations? Hopefully we will learn from history and try to avoid this situation in the future. During the Soviet and US occupations, very different systems of government arose: communism in the North and capitalism in the South (roughly). When election were eventually due, the North and South and the occupying countries could not agree to terms, and I think it was the South which first held democratic elections for its leaders, followed by the North. At this point, there were effectively two governments, and the country was effectively divided into two at the 37th parallel. After the occupying countries pulled out, the North one morning broke through the 37th parallel and attacked the South. Seeing the pre-war statistics, the North truly had most of the infrastructure (energy, development, industry, military capacity) needed to carry out and sustain a war, while I had the impression that the South was much more agriculturally-oriented and did not have the self-capacity to wage a war. Partially as a result of this I think, the North was able to quickly gain control of most of the country within a couple months of fighting, until the UN forces were dispatched and fought back. Beyond regaining control through the 37th parallel, the UN forces were pushing the North into an equally small part of land way up near Russia, when the Chinese decided to act and to join forces with the North Koreans. At this point, the conflict centered mostly back around the 37th parallel, and the bodycount kept increasing with both sides more or less at a stalemate. After one failed negotiation, another negotiation resulted in the creation of the DMZ in order to stop the war. However, since then, North Korea is suspected – or proven? – to have made attempts at the lives of the South Korean leaders both within the country and also during trips abroad. Such events have continued as recently as a major incident in 1997 which is recorded in the war museum.

It would be interesting to hear the North Korean side of the story. We gleaned a small part of it from the aforementioned Canadian, as he had been to North Korea twice before this visit to South Korea. He noted several things. One, that going to the JSA from the North Korean side is not nearly as strict as it is from the South Korean side (where there is a dress code and strict passport controls before going there). Second, he said that the North Korean war museums mostly recount the progress of the war in the same way as the South (he visited the same war museum that we’d gone to), with the difference being that the North claims that it was the South which first crossed over the 37th parallel in an attack on the North.

I’m not sure how I would feel about living in South Korea or in Seoul, a city in a country where the northern counterpart clearly still would like to lay claims on your life and lands and makes attempts every once in a while to make this happen. And recent history proves even more terrifying, that the North Koreans claim that they have developed nuclear weapons capability. Having just visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is a terrifying prospect. What more effective way to bring a country to its knees, causing a massive number of people to burn in a fire probably comparable to that of Hell and forcing a country to come under your control? The prospect is truly horrifying and this makes me understand why the United States and the international community have taken such a hard line against allowing North Korea to develop its nuclear capability. With a “rogue” nation which arguably – and historically – has had very few scruples when confronting obstacles to its goals, and no exercisable popular controls on its political decisions, the prospect of using those nuclear weapons against South Korea is terrifying indeed. I do think that I would like to go to North Korea some day to see the differences with the South.