Tag Archives: DMZ

Cracking Up in the DPRK

Posted on January 1, 2010 by Ryan Murdock

This is the seventeenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

  

ANDQMTF2B80-CNV00025.jpgWe said goodbye to our brave military escort at the DMZ, thankful that they’d protected us from the imminent danger of American attack.

We made one last stop on our way back to the capital, just outside Kaesong city. It was reputedly the tomb of an early Korean king and his Mongolian wife, but as with everything else in the DPRK, nothing could be taken at face value. North Korea has been known to fake archaeological findings to support whatever version of history is the current party line.

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North Korea – The DMZ Too

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Ryan Murdock

This is the sixteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

 

 

ANDQMTF2B80-CNV00034.jpgOur presence on the wrong side of the frontier caused a mild scramble among the South Korean forces.

Frantic radio messages were dispatched. Binoculars were trained on us. Reinforcements jogged over to take up positions half-concealed by the corners of buildings, where they conducted a whispered conference and pointed accusing fingers of guilt. They clearly considered us traitors to humanity.

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Coming Down Hard in the Demilitarized Zone

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Ryan Murdock

This is the fifteenth in a multi-part blog on North Korea. You can find the others here

 

The highlight of my time in North Korea–the moment that made all the badgering and propaganda worthwhile–was our visit to the Demilitarized Zone and the truce village of Panmunjom. This thin line bisecting two worldviews is the last Cold War frontier, and the world’s most heavily defended border.

The uneventful drive from Pyongyang featured the same broad tourist highway we’d seen on the drive north to Mt Myohyang, with the same manufactured greenery on both sides. There were more roadblocks and checkpoints as we neared the border, but this was the only indication of the massive concentration of conventional, chemical and biological weapons stockpiled in the surrounding hills.

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