1 of 1 Travis King Photo: Portal Travis King Photo: Portal
The strip of land dividing the Korean peninsula into north and south is the most heavily fortified area in the world. On both sides of the border there are watchtowers and barbed wire barricades, high fences with alarm systems, checkpoints and guard posts manned around the clock. It is 257 kilometers long and four kilometers deep and planted with 1 to 2 million mines.
“Freedom’s Frontier” is what US and UN troops stationed there since the threeyear Korean War shattered with an uneasy truce in 1953.
They’re impressive defenses, but there’s a catch: From Seoul’s point of view, they’re a bulwark against a North Korean invasion, not intended to deter anyone from defecting to the north. Mainly because it’s difficult to imagine that anyone who experienced life outside of North Korea would choose to live in the world’s most repressive state.
But that’s exactly what American private Travis King did. The 23yearold cavalry scout, who has been in the army since January 2021, had just been released after serving a 47day sentence in a South Korean prison over an altercation with local citizens.
Dramatic desertion on a sightseeing tour
On Tuesday (07/18) King was escorted back to the United States to respond to a disciplinary investigation. However, during the journey, he managed to escape from his guards. He arrived in central Seoul in civilian clothes, where he joined a group of foreigners taking a bus tour of the DMZ.
Such tours typically include both a visit to a terrace overlooking the North and a stop at one of the tunnels dug by North Korean military miners believed to be a possible route for an invasion by North Korean forces.
Then tourists arrive at the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the village of Panmunjom, where the Armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. The city is divided between north and south by a concrete barrier.
Apparently, in Panmunjom, King decided to act. According to reports from members of the tourist group on social media, he was suddenly spotted laughing out loud as he crossed the concrete blocks marking the border before everyone was removed from the scene.
The American soldier is believed to have been arrested by North Korean authorities. Senior officials in Washington said they would “interact” with South Korea and Sweden to find a solution. Stockholm maintains an embassy in Pyongyang, where it represents US interests.
“Horrible ambition” to see the inside of a North Korean prison
Relations between the US and North Korea are currently at an alltime low. After demonstrative missile launches by both sides in the past few days, Pyongyang continued the escalation on Wednesday morning and fired two more shortrange ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
“North Korea’s recent missile launch probably has nothing to do with a U.S. soldier crossing the interKorean border, but neither does such an incident add to the situation,” said LeifEric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
“It is likely that the Kim regime [Jong Un] will view border crossing as a threat to the military, intelligence and public health, even though the individual is more likely to be mentally disturbed and acting impulsively for personal reasons. Unexpected events like this highlight the need for diplomatic channels between governments and regular communication between armed forces.”
Although King’s motives are unclear, he would not be the first American to seek refuge in North Korea. In April 2014, Matthew Miller tore up his tourist visa upon arrival at Pyongyang Airport.
The 24yearold California native said he had a “vile ambition” to visit a North Korean prison to learn more about the human rights situation in the country. A local court sentenced him to six years of hard labor, but he did not serve the full sentence: in November of that year he was released along with KoreanAmerican missionary Kenneth Bae.
Originally from Washington state, Bae was arrested in November 2012 while leading a tour group and sentenced to 15 years in prison for “hostile acts,” which included bringing banned literature into the country. The authorities also accused him of founding an underground group to overthrow the government.
“Crossing borders” since the 1960s
However, the Travis King case appears to have more to do with the six American soldiers who defected between the 1960s and 1980s. Larry Abshier was 19 when he left for North Korea, where he lived until his death in 1983. James Dresnok, 21, went the other way that same year until his death in 2016. Jerry Parrish left the country in 1963 and died in 1998.
Charles Jenkins followed in 1965 but married a Japanese woman kidnapped north. The couple had two children and received permission to move to Japan in 2004. The defector died in 2017.
Roy Chung disappeared in 1979. Pyongyang claimed he defected, but his family still insist he was kidnapped. It is believed that he died around 2004. The most recent defector was Joseph White, who sought asylum in the North in 1982, where he died three years later.
In 2006, the biographies of Charles Robert Jenkins and James Joseph Dresnok were the subject of the documentary Crossing the Line. According to codirector Nicholas Bonner, “Dresnok faced a courtmartial and was simply fed up with authority, coming from a very difficult upbringing and a dysfunctional family.”
“Joe didn’t regret leaving the US one bit because he didn’t have fond memories of it. His family didn’t want him, and he grew up in an orphanage, then his wife left him, so he just wanted to leave.”
Bonner believes Dresnok found a sense of “home” in the North, where he taught English and starred in several propaganda films as an American villain. When he died in Pyongyang in November 2016, he continued to pledge allegiance to the regime that welcomed him 54 years earlier.
Whether Travis King will follow the same path cannot be predicted at this time. His mother, Claudine Gates, told ABC she was shocked by the news of the crossing. “I can’t imagine Travis doing something like that,” he said, adding that he just wanted his son to “come home.”