PANMUNJOM SIGHTSPANMUNJOM SIGHTS
You will stop at the gate where a military guide will join you.
He will take you to the General Lecture Room
and explain the situation using a model of the Panmunjom area.
After passing the gate a road with fences on
both sides after about one km leads to two buildings. Here in
1953 the Armistice Agreement was signed by the government of the
DPRK and by the USA under the UN-flag. You can see the tables and
the flags used.
On the road again you will see behind the fence
a village. It is called Panmun and also the Peace Cooperative.
The local guide will tell you about the misery of the local
farmers who have to live here divided from their relatives in the
village Taesong-dong on the southern side of the demarcation
line. They used to one village before the war.
About 800 meters
south from the Armistice Talks Hall is the Joint Security Area of
the Central Demarcation Line.
From the Panmun Pavilion you will have a view of the area and into South Korea. Sometimes you can see tourists at the other side of the border who are viewing into the forbidden North.
Then you will go down, pass the Monument to the Authograph of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, and reach the five barracks at the demarcation line. Here are the Military Armistice Commission Conference Hall and the meeting hall used by the Neutral nations Supervisory Commission.
The Demarcation Line is, strangely enough, a
10-cm high concrete threshold, that goes through the barracks and
the space between the barracks. On one side are the armed
Northern guardians, on the other side, only a few meters from
each other, are the militaries from the South.
Behind the Line there used to be a small
pavilion. This however was moved and replaced in 1999 by the
South with a big modern-style building, seemingly constructed to
impress the other side. A little further back is the building
supposedly used by the Southern and American intelligence.
Although the demarcation line is only 10 cm
high in the Joint Security Area, a few km from her it becomes a 5
to 8 meters high and 240 km long concrete wall. The wall was
constructed in 1976-79 by the South and by US forces. According
to the North it proves that the South is not willing to have
peace and re-unification in Korea.
