Above the 38th parallel

The reality of the demilitarized zone: for half a century now, the militaries of the two countries have looked at each other with distrust. (Photo: AP )

In its style, this summit was not like the traditional summits of the leaders of the two states. The agenda, schedule, places of visit and other details of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's stay in North Korea were stubbornly kept secret until the very last moment. Only representatives of the South Korean press were allowed to come to the DPRK. Western journalists commented on the inter-Korean summit while sitting in front of television screens in Seoul.

Monday starts on Tuesday
When the day before, without explanation, Pyongyang announced that the visit of the Seoul guest was postponed and would begin not on Monday, June 12, but a day later, this added even more mystery to the meeting of the two Kims - North Korean President Kim Jong Il and his South Korean counterpart, giving rise to a wave of rumors and speculation about what actually could have caused the transfer. Some said that Pyongyang had technical problems with providing live television broadcast of the meeting of the two presidents to South Korea - the equipment at its disposal did not pass the tests. Others say the visit has been postponed to ensure greater security. And someone looked for a political motive in everything, warning about a possible false start in the inter-Korean dialogue, which could end before it even began.

Experiencing a catastrophic lack of information, journalists were forced to guess: will Kim Dae Jung visit the mausoleum of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, will any statements be made, will there be a banquet at the end? All that was known for certain was that Kim Dae Jung would fly to Pyongyang by plane, and make the 180-kilometer journey back in a presidential limousine with an honorary escort of motorcyclists, passing through Panmunjom - the only place where it is possible to cross the demilitarized zone separating the two countries, which is so protected today , just as not a single border in the world is guarded (see "Cold War Reserve"). And also that Kim Dae Jung will give Kim Jong Il a pair of Jindo dogs of a rare South Korean variety, known for fantastic devotion to their owner. And as a return gift he will receive a pair of equally loyal North Korean dogs.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, at the initiative of a group of parliament members, a prayer service was held for the success of the upcoming meeting and the unification of the two Koreas. The owner of the Blue House himself (as the presidential palace is called in South Korea), going to Pyongyang, promised: “I will say everything I want to say. I will suggest - let’s look for ways for all Koreans - both in the North and in the South - to live happily peaceful life."

Could it have been imagined a year ago that the leaders of the two Korean states, who lived in a state of “neither war nor peace” for half a century, would decide to step over decades of hostility and barbed wire?

Skeletons in the closet
After the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, a communist regime was established in the northern part of the peninsula, which the Red Army entered, led by Kim Il Sung, the former commander of a reconnaissance battalion of the Far Eastern Front. In the South, where American troops landed, one of the leaders of the anti-communist nationalist movement, Syngman Rhee, who had arrived from the United States, was put in power.

Korea found itself involved in a fierce ideological struggle between the great powers, which resulted in the formation of two Korean states, divided along the 38th parallel, the demarcation line between Soviet and American troops. The Cold War, which the world entered at the turn of the 40s and 50s, quickly buried all the agreements of the allies on Korea, which provided for the holding of democratic elections on the peninsula and the creation of a unified Korean state within five years.

What happened on the Korean Peninsula became a Cold War squared: the confrontation between world powers turned out to be multiplied by the sophisticated, purely Asian cruelty and treachery of their henchmen.


Memory of the future: on the eve of the visit of the President of the Republic of Korea to Pyongyang, South Korean parliamentarians lit candles along the borders of the once united country. (Photo: AP )

This is evidenced by all the new data about the Korean War and the events preceding it, which are becoming public only today thanks to the declassification of individual archival documents (it should be noted that most of the documents remain closed to this day due to the explosiveness of this topic and its extreme sensitivity, first of all for Koreans).

The main conclusion that modern researchers come to both in the West and in Russia is the Korean War of 1950 - 1953. in fact, it began as a civil conflict much earlier, back in 1945. Expressing this point of view, the famous American Korean scholar Bruce Cumings in his book “The Origins of the Korean War” writes that on June 25, 1950, “Korea moved not from peace to war, but from a small war to a big one.”

The South Korean authorities, who in the second half of the 40s launched a real hunt for communists and leftists (communist ideas on the Korean Peninsula were quite popular at that time), were no different in their cruelty from Kim Il Sung, who exterminated everyone who was suspected of disloyalty his regime.

Archival materials show that in 1949, at the southernmost point, on the island of Jeju, where newlyweds now spend their honeymoon, South Korean police and soldiers burned the village of Puk Won to the ground. They slaughtered its entire population, including women, old people and babies. The reason for such brutal reprisals was suspicions of local residents’ sympathies for the communists. The fate of Puk Won was shared by hundreds of other “red villages” in Jeju, whose residents were tortured, raped, and burned alive. During these special operations, 60 thousand people were exterminated - a fifth of the island's population. American troops stationed on the island did not interfere, observing the repression from the sidelines.

The bloody anti-communist terror in the South provoked the northerners to retaliate. Kim Il Sung, who advocated the forceful unification of the two Koreas, managed to convince Stalin that on the other side of the 38th parallel there was strong sympathy for the communists and the pro-American regime of Syngman Rhee was about to fall. You just need to “drop” it. Thus, having secured the support of the Kremlin, on June 25, 1950, strike groups of North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the southern part of the peninsula. After the UN Security Council decided to help South Korea, the United States took the leading role in repelling aggression from the North, and the USSR and China, disobeying the UN demand, sided with Pyongyang. Two million Koreans and one million Chinese died in this war. The United States lost 38 thousand troops in it.

Materials from Soviet archives, opened only in the first half of the 90s, confirmed what was essentially clear before: the USSR provided North Korea not only with economic, but also with direct military assistance. Thus, in airspace defense operations in the Pyongyang area alone, Soviet fighter pilots, operating from Chinese airfields, destroyed 1,300 US combat aircraft, including more than 200 B-29 “flying fortresses”, while losing 330 of their own aircraft and 135 pilots .

Coded correspondence between Stalin, Mao, Zhou Enlai and Kim Il Sung also became public. The Chinese, in particular, advised their North Korean allies to keep at least 20 percent of American prisoners of war at the end of the war in order to blackmail the United States with them when the issue of China's admission to the UN was considered and Washington's voice would be of great importance.
Today, the United States is persistently seeking information from Pyongyang about the fate of its 8,100 soldiers missing in action in Korea (four times more than in Vietnam). In particular, carrying out work to identify their remains. Two weeks before the inter-Korean summit, American-North Korean negotiations on this issue were held in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in an atmosphere of strict secrecy. Nothing is known about their results.

When will the Korean wall fall?
In the following decades, relations between North and South remained extremely harsh, and at times resulted in bloody incidents. The hard totalitarian regime that had established itself in the North engaged in missile and nuclear blackmail of the world community, kidnappings and terrorist attacks against the South.

Perhaps the most daring attempt was to blow up South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during his state visit to Burma in October 1983. It was only by luck that Chon Doo Hwan survived (the terrorists confused his car with the car of the Korean ambassador in Rangoon). However, a powerful explosion took the lives of four members of the South Korean parliament, two presidential advisers and an ambassador accompanying Chun Doo-hwan.

Five years later, in November 1987, on the eve of the Seoul Olympics, the North Korean leadership instructed its intelligence services to blow up a South Korean airliner en route from Baghdad to Seoul. The operation was entrusted to 70-year-old Korean state security veteran Kim Sung-il and 25-year-old Kim Hyun-hee, who, after getting off the flight during a stopover in Abu Dhabi, “forgot” a bag with an explosive device on the plane. This terrorist attack cost the lives of 115 passengers.

Having lost Soviet support, which allowed Pyongyang to receive oil and fertilizers at “friendly prices,” the DPRK economy collapsed in the first half of the 90s. The country was finally hit by a series of floods and droughts. In the mid-90s, real famine began in North Korea.


Photos from secret archives. The destruction of communists in South Korea on the eve of the war (left). American soldiers surrender to North Korean units (right)

The South Korean regime, which Seoul called "managed democracy," was essentially nothing more than corrupt authoritarianism. The generals who ruled the country for decades ruthlessly suppressed any manifestations of public protest. True, unlike the DPRK, the Republic of Korea managed to achieve impressive economic growth already in the 80s.

Why was the current meeting of the two Kims still possible? Having lived for half a century in a state of fierce confrontation, which did not bring success to either side, Pyongyang and Seoul were forced to admit two fundamental things. First, the unification of the two Koreas by force is impossible. Secondly, maintaining the current status quo, when both countries are still formally in a state of war, leads to a dead end, it dooms the two countries to further deepening the split.

To take a step towards each other, Pyongyang and Seoul had to encroach on the foundations of the state ideology. North Korea, exhausted by famine and economic ruin, is seeking to overcome its image as a hermit country and open up to the outside world. In turn, South Korea moved away from its strict anti-communist course and proclaimed the so-called “sunshine” policy. Its point is to abandon plans to absorb North Korea and develop cooperation with the northerners in all areas (see “Gasoline is yours”).

In 1994, when Kim Il Sung died, the world started talking about the fact that the North Korean regime was about to collapse and the unification of the peninsula would follow the German scenario. Today it is obvious that this will not happen in the near future. Firstly, the southerners themselves are in no hurry, having studied the German experience and perfectly understanding that bringing the North up to the level of development of the South would require colossal efforts and resources from them. South Korea today is not ready to shoulder this burden. Secondly, the ingenuity of the North Korean nomenklatura has more than once refuted prophecies about the imminent collapse of the totalitarian regime. Having lost Moscow's support (see "Moscow between Kim and Kim"), the cornered Korean regime showed amazing resilience.

The process of unifying the two Koreas will most likely be difficult and lengthy. Nevertheless, unification is inevitable. The idea of ​​the homogeneity of the Korean nation, “living for more than five thousand years on the same territory, bound by the blood of the same ancestors,” is becoming increasingly popular. By the way, Kim Il Sung was the first to talk about this shortly before his death, and in 1993 he put forward a ten-point “Great National Consolidation Program.” Today, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung is also talking about national consolidation.

Various options are being considered as a model of the future state structure prior to the merger. One of them is the formation of the Democratic Confederate Republic of Koryo, which provides for the existence of two social systems and two governments within one nation and one state.

Returning home, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung honestly admitted that it was a complete surprise for him to see a million people on the streets of Pyongyang, wildly rejoicing at the visit of the Seoul guest. "If we combine our potentials, one day Korea will become one of the leading powers in the world," he said. “Northern Kim” was also in a good mood. "Western journalists are very interested in why I live like a hermit. Now, after your visit, they have received an answer," he said with a smile, turning to Kim Dae-jung.

At the meeting, a proposal was made to march as a single sports team under one flag at the opening and closing ceremonies of this year's Summer Olympics in Sydney, and also to perform together at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan. In addition, the parties signed an agreement covering a wide range of issues in bilateral relations - from the problem of reuniting separated families and continuing dialogue on the issue of national consolidation to economic cooperation.

One day the Korean Wall will no longer be needed. It will be dismantled for souvenirs, just as the Berlin one was dismantled a decade ago. No one knows when this will happen, but “the process has begun” - that’s for sure.

With the participation of Dmitry Mosyakov, Alexander Vorontsov



Korean woman Chi Shin Soon celebrated the half-century anniversary of the start of the war at the national cemetery in Seoul, where her son, who was killed in 1951, is buried. (Photo: AP )