A group of tourists tour the Panmunjom Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, where US soldier Travis King crossed the border into North Korea. Sarah Jane Leslie (AP)
Nearly a week after his incarceration for entering North Korea in a Cold War-style episode, there are more questions than answers in the case of Travis King, a US soldier whose fate now rests in the hands of one of the world’s most secretive and ruthless regimes.
The most pressing questions are: where is he being held and what are the Pyongyang authorities planning to do with him? Washington, meanwhile, is focused on what might have prompted King to enter North Korea. Was he escaping to avoid punishment? Was it a joke that got out of control? Or was it, as the wildest speculation would suggest, a botched intelligence plan?
Based on investigations by US media and the little official information available, it is known that the Private 2nd Class King’s decision to traverse the 150-mile Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that has separated North and South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953 put the United States in a difficult position. The US does not maintain diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. Additionally, King’s detention comes at one of the worst times ever amid tensions over the recent deployment of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea and North Korea’s launch of multiple ballistic missiles.
In January 2021, King enlisted in the military. He was stationed in South Korea. It is not known exactly when he arrived in the Asian country where the US has 28,500 troops stationed. It seems he went through different units: from Sixth Squad to Fort Bliss’s First Armored Division. King was due to land at this Texas base last Tuesday when he decided to become the first US soldier to enter North Korea since 1982. His superiors sent him home for disciplinary reasons: King was involved in a dispute last October. He was found guilty and fined by a South Korean court on two counts of assault, including damaging a police car, according to Portal. He spent 50 days behind bars in South Korea and was released on July 10.
US soldier Travis King. SOCIAL MEDIA (VIA Portal)
Seven days later, officials escorted him to the airport, but only to customs as they were not allowed to go through that point with him. He was threatened with disciplinary action in the United States, but nothing serious. Before he was arrested on Tuesday, he spoke to his mother, Claudine Gates, who told ABC television that he sounded calm. “I can’t imagine Travis doing something like that,” Gates said.
In fact, no one understands why King ended up in North Korea. After clearing customs, the soldier decided to exit Seoul Airport’s boarding area and join a tour of the demilitarized zone in the border city of Panmunjom — the only place where contacts between the two Koreas are allowed.
Tens of thousands of tourists travel the DMZ each year (up to 100,000 before the pandemic), but always in an organized group and with prior approval. This raises another question: Why wasn’t an alarm triggered when King’s passport was checked?
“The Most Dangerous Place on Earth”
That morning, King was among a group of 43 tourists from around the world who heard the stories each visitor is told: how Bill Clinton called this place “the most dangerous place on earth,” how the prisoner exchange on the Bridge of No Return ended in 1968, and how two American soldiers, Arthur Bonifas and Mark Barrett, were killed by North Korean soldiers in 1976 after pruning a cottonwood tree said to have been planted by then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung .
The tour also takes visitors into the Common Security Perimeter, made up of bright blue United Nations buildings. This is where former US President Donald Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2019, and other high-profile visits are taking place. Visitors are told that North Korea is constantly patrolling the Common Security Zone and that any wrong step can be deadly. According to witnesses, unaware that the man on the tour in jeans and a T-shirt was a soldier, King began running north from there. Sarah Leslie, a tourist from New Zealand, said she thought it was a joke. “I initially assumed that a buddy would film him doing a really stupid prank or stunt, like doing a TikTok, which is the stupidest thing you can do,” Leslie told AP. “But then I heard one of the soldiers yell, ‘Get this guy.'”
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Panmunjom on June 30, 2019.KCNA KCNA (Portal)
No American has ever entered North Korea from the Common Security Zone, even though the country is only separated by a narrow wall. As a matter of fact. Trump was the first US President to enter North Korea by crossing this border.
The last American to enter North Korea was Bruce Byron Lowrance, who arrived from China in 2018 and was held for a month before being released. In 2016, US student Otto Warmbier entered the country as a tourist and was accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster as a souvenir. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but returned to the US after 17 months in a coma. According to US authorities, he was beaten by authorities in Pyongyang. He died shortly after returning home.
The last time a US soldier crossed North Korea was in 1982 when Joseph White defected to the country. He died three years later, allegedly in a drowning accident. The most famous case, however, is that of Charles Jenkins, who left his post in South Korea in 1965 to avoid posting to Vietnam. He was allowed to leave North Korea in 2004. He died in Japan in 2017. The following year, Pyongyang released the last three known US detainees as part of an unsuccessful plan to unfreeze icy relations between the two countries.
On Tuesday, after King’s arrest, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he was concerned about the soldier’s fate. “We are closely monitoring and investigating the situation,” he said. Austin added that the United States has attempted to communicate with North Korean authorities. According to Portal, the United Nations command has started talks with North Korea about King. This raises another question about the case: how does Pyongyang intend to exploit King in its never-ending tug-of-war with the West? True to its legendary secrecy, North Korea has so far remained silent on the issue.
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