Panmunjeom Totally Explained

Everything about Panmunjeom totally explained

Panmunjom in Gyeonggi province is a village on the de facto border between North and South Korea, where the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War was signed. The building where the armistice was signed still stands, though it's on the northern side of the Military Demarcation Line, which runs through the middle of the Demilitarized Zone. It is considered one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. It shouldn't be confused with the Joint Security Area (JSA) nearby, where discussions between North and South still take place in blue buildings which straddle the Military Demarcation Line.

Location

The village is 53 kilometres north-northwest of Seoul and 10 kilometres east of Kaesong and was the meeting place of the Military Armistice Commission. The meetings took place in several tents set up on the south side of the Kaesong-Seoul road on the west bank of the Sa'cheon stream; the village, a small cluster of less than ten huts, was opposite the negotiation site on the north side. The eighteen copies of Volume I and II of the armistice were signed by the Senior Delegates of each side in a building constructed by both sides over a 48-hour period (North Korea provided labor and some supplies, the United Nations Command provided some supplies, generators and lighting to allow the work to continue at night). After the cease-fire was signed, construction began in September of 1953 on a new site located approximately one kilometer east of the village; this is the Joint Security Area and all meetings between North Korea and the United Nations Command or South Korea have taken place here since its completion. The JSA is often, mistakenly, called Panmunjeom. After the war, when all civilians were removed from the DMZ (except for two villages near the JSA on opposite sides of the MDL), the empty village of Panmunjeom fell into disrepair and eventually disappeared from the landscape. There is no evidence of it today, however, the building constructed for the signing of the armistice has since been renamed by North Korea as the Peace Museum.

Brief background

United Nations forces met with North Korean and Chinese officials at Panmunjeom from 1951 to 1953 for truce talks. The talks dragged on for several months. The main point of contention during the talks was the question surrounding the prisoners of war. North Koreans largely mistreated American and allied POWs, including subjecting them to brainwashing. The problem was very different for North Korean and Chinese POWs. As many as one third of the captured North Koreans and many more of the Chinese didn't want to be returned to their communist countries. Moreover, South Korea was uncompromising in its demand for a unified state.
On June 8, 1953, an agreement to the POW problem was reached. Those prisoners who refused to return to their communist countries were allowed to live under a neutral supervising commission for three months. At the end of this time period, those who still refused repatriation would be released. Among those who refused repatriation were twenty two American and British POWs, all but two of whom chose to defect to the People's Republic of China.
A final agreement was reached on July 27, 1953. The United Nations, China and North Korea agreed to an armistice, effectively ending the fighting; however, South Korea refused to sign it. The agreement established a 4 kilometer wide demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel, effectively dividing Korea into two separate countries. Although most troops and all heavy weapons were to be removed from the area, it has been heavily armed by both sides since the end of the fighting. Since South Korea never signed the armistice, the two countries technically remain at war.

Panmunjeom in fiction

Some landmarks of Panmunjeom, like the Joint Security Area and the Bridge of No Return, were portrayed in the popular South Korean movie JSA.
The bridge also featured in the James Bond film Die Another Day.
Panmunjeom and the Bridge of No Return are the subject of Michael J Downey's song and video "Bridge of No Return" (2006)(External Link

) Panmunjeom (and the peace talks there) is often mentioned in the TV series M*A*S*H, and in the season 7 episode "Peace on Us", Hawkeye Pierce goes there in an attempt to personally plead with the negotiation parties to halt the conflict. He is told, on the record, that if he's ever seen within 20 miles of Panmujeom, he'll be thrown into the stockade.

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