A US soldier crossed the border between South Korea and North Korea without permission on Tuesday, the United Nations reported. It is one of the most militarized and guarded borders in the world and one of the last remnants of the Cold War. The identity of the US citizen was not immediately released, although Pentagon sources cited by US media suggested it was a soldier being held by North Korean authorities.
At first, only official information was distributed via the Twitter account of the headquarters of the United Nations with the following message: “A US citizen on a JSA orientation tour.” [siglas de Joint Security Area, Área Conjunta de Seguridad] crossed the military demarcation line into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) without permission. We understand he is currently in DPRK custody and are working with our colleagues in the North Korean military to investigate this incident.” The Common Security Space is the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.
The UN command mentioned above patrols the southern strip of the JSA, the only point on the border where South Korean and North Korean troops can see each other. Bridging the rift between the two countries, which are still formally at war after signing an armistice in 1953 instead of a peace treaty, is forbidden by either nation.
The South Korean daily Donga, citing the South Korean military, identified the person as Travis King, a US Army soldier with the rank of private second class, although no US media has been able to verify this identity so far.
According to the US broadcaster CBS, the soldier was about to be sent back to the United States for disciplinary reasons when, for reasons that are still unclear, he escaped after passing through airport security and joined a border tour. with the neighbor to the north.
Donga and another South Korean newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, also citing South Korean army sources, say the man “suddenly” jumped over the brick line marking the division between the two countries, to the astonishment of the tour group accompanying him. in Panmunjom, the village where the two Koreas signed a truce in 2018. This city lies within the 248 km long, heavily fortified Common Security Zone. The area is monitored on the one hand by the UN command and on the other hand by the North Korean military. There are no civilians living in the village.
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It is an 800 meter wide border line, a kind of no-man’s land where the meetings between the two countries take place on the border at the 38th parallel, which has separated them since 1953. This place has also been the scene of numerous high-level meetings, such as that of former US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2019. It is also a popular tourist attraction, inviting curious people from all over the world to come and see one of the Last seen with my own eyes testimonies of confrontation between blocs of the Cold War.
The South Korean Defense Ministry said it had no information about the incident. Both the South Korean chiefs of staff and the spokesman for the US army stationed in South Korea said they had nothing more to add to the UN command’s statement. They also did not confirm if the soldier was among the nearly 28,000 troops the US has stationed in the Asian country. “We are investigating what happened,” said Colonel Isaac Taylor, spokesman for the UN command, Portal reports.
a tricky moment
This Tuesday’s crossing comes at a sensitive time when tensions on both sides of the 38th parallel appear to be rising at times. Last week, North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile towards Japan, and on the same day a US submarine armed with nuclear ballistic missiles arrived in the South Korean port of Busan (450 kilometers from Seoul). Washington had not sent such weapons to its South Korean partner since 1981. It pledged this last April with the aim of stepping up what it calls “enhanced deterrence,” which it is using to persuade Pyongyang not to proceed with weapon development. of weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. State Department’s travel advisory bans its citizens from entering North Korea “due to the continuing and serious threat of arrest and prolonged detention of U.S. citizens.” The ban dates back to 2017 after Otto Warmbier, an Ohio student who traveled to Pyongyang in 2015 for tourism, was arrested and charged with subversion. The 22-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison and hard labor for trying to steal a propaganda poster from his hotel. He died in a coma in 2017, six days after his return to the United States. Washington does not provide consular services in North Korea and diplomatic relations between the two countries have been severed.
North Korea has been under full lockdown since the pandemic began, but until January 2020, the Kim Jong Un regime allowed tourist groups to enter, but always on visits organized by a state-approved agency.
It is estimated that more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled their country since the end of the Korean War (1950-1953) in search of a future free from economic hardship and political oppression. Instances of Americans or other Westerners defecting to North Korea are rare, although they do exist.
During the Cold War, a small group of American soldiers fled to North Korea, including Charles Jenkins, who left his post in South Korea in 1965 and fled via the JSA. His story has been portrayed in several North Korean propaganda films. Jenkins married a Japanese nursing student who was kidnapped by North Korean agents and died in Japan in 2017. In 2018, Pyongyang released the last three known US detainees as part of a rapprochement between the two governments, a thaw that didn’t work.
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