At the DMZ, Swiss and Swedish soldiers keep 'peace' watch

A view from South Korea’s inter-Korean liaison office “Freedom House.” The North’s liaison office “Panmungak” can be seen in the distance and three conference buildings for the NNSC and the Military’s Armistice Commission are in the foreground. / Korea Times photos by Choi Won-suk

• Published Feb 9, 2015 6:50 PM KST
• Updated Feb 9, 2015 6:50 PM KST

By Kim Hyo-jin

Between North and South Korea, on the world’s most heavily fortified border, lies a tiny village full of colorful huts. It is no ordinary village as its only permanent residents are five Swiss and five Swedish soldiers from the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC).

The 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty signed by both sides and so the NNSC was established as a neutral party to oversee the truce between North and South Korea and their allies.

The NNSC camp is located a few meters to one side of the Panmunjom truce village, which is best known for the low-slung blue United Nations huts that straddle the inter-Korean border. Despite being nicknamed the “Peace Village,” it has been the site of violent incidents over the years.

“We are accommodated here pretty well. It is a relaxed environment, nice surroundings with birds singing and all that,” Swedish Gen. Berndt Grundevik told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

Speaking from inside one of the bright red NNSC huts, the room looks more like a European chalet, with net curtains and wooden furniture belying signs of the Cold War-era atmosphere outside. The huts, which all bore the letter “T” for “temporary,” were first built by U.S. Army engineers 60 years ago as non-permanent barracks made of Styrofoam and steel.

The camp lies just by the fence marking the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), which separates South Korea from North Korea’s million-strong army, and is flanked by an estimated 13,400 artillery positions to the east and west.

“Though we are only 30 meters away from the North Korean soldiers, I have never felt threatened,” said Swiss Gen. Urs Gerber, who has served at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) for three years as head of the Swiss delegation. “It’s because we are an impartial and independent body, not a warring faction.”

The NNSC originally consisted of four delegations: Czechoslovakia and Poland, chosen by North Korea and the then USSR; and Switzerland and Sweden, chosen by the U.S.-led United Nations Command.

But after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia two years later, the North expelled the Czech and Polish representatives, as both countries “came out of the cold” and removed their communist-style governments.

Poland, however, still sends representatives to commission meetings twice a year, despite being expelled in 1995 ― a fact that legitimizes the NNSC’s existence, according to the commission, as 75 percent of the original delegations remains intact.

Pyongyang has accused the NNSC of no longer being neutral to oversee the implementation of the agreement. Last year, North Korean state media said the NNSC was “forgotten in history” and a “servant of the U.S.”

Gen. Gerber said he understands Pyongyang’s concerns but stressed the commission has a more nuanced role to play.

“We did lose our watching status in terms of the two sides, but we also have to maintain impartiality on the southern side,” Gerber said, adding that U.S. objectives and aspirations do not always agree with South Korean ones.

The Swiss and Swedish delegations oversee joint South Korea-U.S. military drills to ensure that the exercises do not deviate from the stated defensive and preventive aims related to North Korea. North Korea, however, sees the annual drills as a rehearsal for war.

“We represent neutrality not only over the fence but here on the southern part of the peninsula too,” Gen. Gerber said. “If the level of the drill escalates, our mission would be gone. We have a job as long as the armistice is valid.”

Without a North Korean delegation, the Swiss and Swedish soldiers hold an NNSC meeting every Tuesday.

After greeting The Korea Times at their camp, the delegations moved to the conference hut in Panmunjom for the meeting. The hut sits on the aptly named Conference Row and straddles the MDL. Just a few steps away, North and South Korean soldiers stand, staring each other down.

When the meeting is over, they deliver copies of the minutes to a small mailbox used by the Korean People’s Army (KPA). Since 1995, however, nobody from the KPA has picked up the minutes. Thus, the mailbox is emptied by an NNSC member every six months to prevent it from overflowing.

On the other side of the hut lies a door that opens onto North Korean territory. “With opening the door, we used to wave this report at them in order to get a focus,” Swedish Maj. Peter Forsberg said. That practice has now stopped, he said, after North Korea said last spring that it was an “offensive gesture.”

The southern side of the hut was also closed to South Koreans as soon as the meeting started. The highly secretive NNSC meeting on that day was the 3,437th.

“We feel important; we are accepted well here. Koreans say thank you for your service,” Gen. Grundevik said. “When you are in another country, you are like an intruder, so it is mentally tough to solve problems. But not here in Korea. We feel important.”

“We should be relaxed yet balanced in this hot spot over the longer term,” Gen. Gerber said. “Back home, I was like a 100-meter runner. Here, I am running a marathon.”