Revisitng Panmunjeom
By Choe Chong-dae
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Panmunjeom, the truce village straddling North and South Korea,was in the global spotlight when U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un had a historic summit there on June 30.
My particular ties with the Swedish and Swiss delegations of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) at Panmunjeom over several decades have led me to write some Panmunjeom-related columns in this paper: “Panmunjeom” on Aug. 18, 1999, “Joint Security Area” on Sept. 16, 2005, and
“Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission”
on June 13, 2014.
I had many opportunities to visit Panmunjeom to attend receptions in honor of Swedish and Swiss involvement in the NNSC and to celebrate their contributions to the security of Korea. I also had the honor of meeting NNSC delegates from Czechoslovakia and Poland at receptions held at the NNSC Swedish Camp in the late 1970s.
The NNSC delegates who have served at the Joint Security Area (JSA) are known to keep fond memories of Panmunjeom and of Korea. Some NNSC delegates have served at the JSA twice. Major General Patrick Gauchat, present chief of the Swiss delegation, served in Panmunjeom more than decade ago. The NNSC originally comprised of Swedes and Swiss for the United Nations and South Korea, and Czechoslovakians and Poles for North Korea and China to supervise the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement.
Czech delegates took many photographs relating to the ceasefire, including landscapes of local cities in North and South Korea, right after the war. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the ceasefire, the Seoul Museum of History published a book titled “ Korean Peninsula after the Armistice as Seen by Czechoslovakia's Delegate of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (1953-1956)” in cooperation with the Embassy of the Czech Republic to Korea in 2013. The book is a significant source of NNSC activities, Korean people's lives and their political circumstances in post-war Korea.
Although South Korea had not established diplomatic ties with Czechoslovakia nor Poland or any other communist countries by then, I was fortunate to exchange ideas and take a photo with them. I have kept the photo and am very proud of it because the Czech, Slovak and Polish nations have since become democratic.
On May 10, I visited Panmunjeom again to attend the annual NNSC reception. I realized the tense atmosphere there has changed with reduced tensions in the wake of the first inter-Korea summit between South Korea's President Moon Jae-in and North Korea's leader Kim there on April 27, 2018.
Walking around the footbridge near the NNSC Camp in Panmunjeom, where Moon and Kim took a stroll and had a private discussion, I watched the scene again as flocks of migratory birds flew freely toward the North from the South and vice versa. Like the flocks of birds, the Korean people should be free from ideological confrontation, so that Koreans may travel between the South and North freely.
Although the echo of Korea's yearning for national unification resonates in the area of Panmunjeom, unification still remains only a dream. It is my fervent wish that Korea's unification will come true and Panmunjeom will become a landmark of peace and a beacon of hope in the world.
Choe Chong-dae is a guest columnist of The Korea Times. He is president of Dae-kwang International Co., and director of the Korean-Swedish Association. He can be reached at
choecd@naver.com
.