Cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare, though more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Panmunjom, located inside the 248-kilometre-long (154-mile) Demilitarized Zone, has been jointly overseen by the UN Command and North Korea since its creation at the close of the Korean War. Bloodshed and gunfire have occasionally occurred there, but it has also been a venue for numerous talks and is a popular tourist spot.
Known for its blue huts straddling concrete slabs that form the demarcation line, Panmunjom draws visitors from both sides who want to see the Cold War’s last frontier. No civilians live at Panmunjom. North and South Korean soldiers faced off within meters (yards) of each other, while tourists on both sides snap photographs.
Around 1,00,000 visitors reach the border region every year
Tours to the southern side of the village reportedly drew around 100,000 visitors a year before the coronavirus pandemic, when South Korea restricted gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19. The tours resumed fully last year. During a short-lived period of inter-Korean engagement in 2018, Panmunjom was one of the border sites that underwent mine-clearing operations by North and South Korean army engineers as the Koreas vowed to turn the village into a “peace zone” where tourists from both sides could move around with more freedom.
In November 2017, North Korean soldiers fired 40 rounds as one of their colleagues raced toward the South. The soldier was hit five times before he was found beneath a pile of leaves on the southern side of Panmunjom. He survived and is now in South Korea.
The most famous incident at Panmunjom happened in August 1976
The most famous incident at Panmunjom happened in August 1976, when two American army officers were killed by axe-wielding North Korean soldiers. The U.S. officers had been sent to trim a 40-foot (12-meter) tree that obstructed the view from a checkpoint. The attack prompted Washington to fly nuclear-capable B-52 bombers toward the DMZ to intimidate North Korea.
Panmunjom also is where the armistice that ended the Korean War was signed. That armistice has yet to be replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula technically in a state of war. The United States still stationed about 28,000 troops in South Korea.
There have been a small number of US soldiers who went to North Korea during the Cold War, including Charles Jenkins, who deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965 and fled across the DMZ. He appeared in North Korean propaganda films and married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted from Japan by North Korean agents. He died in Japan in 2017.
Some American civilians have been arrested in North Korea in recent years
But in recent years, some American civilians have been arrested in North Korea after allegedly entering the country from China. They were later convicted of espionage, subversion and other anti-state acts, but were often released after the U.S. sent high-profile missions to secure their freedom.
In May 2018, North Korea released three American detainees -– Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song -– who returned to the United States on a plane with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a short-lived period of warm relations between the longtime adversaries. Later in 2018, North Korea said it expelled American Bruce Byron Lowrance. Since his ouster, there have been no reports of other Americans detained in North Korea before Tuesday’s incident.
The 2018 releases came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was engaged in nuclear diplomacy with then-President Donald Trump. The high-stakes diplomacy collapsed in 2019 amid wrangling over U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea.
(With inputs from AP)
