Residents near inter-Korean border call for calm amid rising tensions

Kim Yong-bin, a farmer living in Cheorwon County near the inter-Korean border, speaks during a press conference in central Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Residents living near the inter-Korean border called for calmn on Thursday amid growing military tension, saying they fear even a single miscalculation ― by either Seoul or Pyongyang ― could lead to the destruction of their villages and their lives.

Speaking at a press conference in central Seoul, residents from Paju and Cheorwon said they fear the worst after the de facto end of the 2018 military agreement between South and North Korea. With buffer zones now vastly reduced and military activities visually increasing in the region, they said their sense of security has been seriously disrupted ― with growing concerns that they could be the first victims of a possible armed clash.

“Whenever I see troops or military vehicles moving in or around my areas these days, I do so with some apprehension,” said Kim Yong-bin, a farmer living in Cheorwon, a county in northern Gangwon Province. “The Korean War did not occur overnight … For a long period in the lead up to it, there had been skirmishes and other signs near the border.”

The expression of their worries comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened to annihilate South Korea with nuclear weapons, while calling it a “principal enemy” earlier this month. President Yoon Suk Yeol responded by vowing a swift, strong retaliation against any provocation, saying he will not back down in the face of the regime’s threat.

The residents said intensifying tensions from such aggressive rhetoric and action ― such as a test-fire of North Korea’s solid-fuel missile tipped with a hypersonic maneuverable warhead ― have changed the atmosphere near the border.

“Recently, I see far more reconnaissance aircraft and drones flying in the skies,” said Lee Jae-hee, a speaker from Paju, a border city in Gyeonggi Province.

South Korean soldiers gather next to their armored vehicles during a military exercise in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, a city near the inter-Korean border, Wednesday. AP-Yonhap

Lee said many people there are particularly concerned about activists who send anti-regime leaflets across the border, which he believes could trigger a skirmish that could result in the North attacking border areas and beyond.

“If North Korea’s military tries to shoot down balloons carrying such leaflets or attack the area from which they were sent, it may well turn into a military clash between the South and the North,” he said.

Despite the freezing weather, Lee said he saw or heard about some activists who attempted to send such materials recently into the North Korean territory. With such activists expected to become more active in March and April as the weather becomes warm, he said he is very worried about how the North would react.

Park Tae-won, a fisherman who lives on Yeonpyeong Island, which became the target of the North’s bombardment in 2010, said he would not experience another such tragedy.

Park, who could not attend the media event due to weather conditions, said in a statement the number of illegal Chinese fishing boats in waters near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas, apparently decreased recently. For many fishermen, it serves as a “barometer of inter-Korean relations” as Chinese fishing boats tend to increase there when tensions are low, he noted.

Activists who organized the event called on the government to do more to prevent possible military clashes, saying it should take the initiative to maintain peace instead of pinning the blame on the North for rising tensions.

“If an accidental clash turns into a regional war or a nuclear war, it would be an irreversible catastrophe,” activists from more than 100 civic groups said in a joint statement. “We urge the government to stop blaming the North and establish measures immediately to prevent armed clashes.”