AQUILA
THE
Korean
DIVISION
AT THE END OF WORLD WAR TWO, THERE WAS MASS DESTRUCTION, POVERTY AND DISARRAY IN EUROPE AND BEYOND, EVENTUALLY THE DUST SETTLED AND DISPLAYED AN UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE OF THE FIGHTING - THE KOREAN DIVISION.
I
Brothers, sisters, cousins, and parents were once stranded on either side of the peninsula, but now the families in Korea do have a chance to meet each other. However, they cannot cross the border freely. In the South, individuals are chosen by an online lottery to have the chance to cross the border and reconnect. Once they are chosen, if they pull out, they are never entered again so they’ve lost their chance. In the North, individuals are thought to be chosen because of loyalty to the regime, but the real system of selection is still unknown. Four of the original 93 families from the South that were selected. Many ended up cancelling, as family members were too ill to make the journey to the North. But, as many of the people wanting to meet relatives are very old, a few even die before they even get the chance. Last year alone, 3,800 South Koreans died without ever seeing their relatives. Families split up because of artificial boundary drawn up by men thousands of miles away.
n 1945, Korea was under Japanese occupation but, at the end of the war, Japan surrendered. A consequence of this was that it had to give up its empire, which included Korea. Korea would be split into two across the 38th parallel. The USSR (Russia) imposed a dictatorship in the North, while the USA installed a democratically elected government in the South. This agreement was to remain in effect until the country could come to terms and agree upon some kind of unified form of government that would occupy the entire country. This was the agreement made by the United States and Soviet Union,. However, in 1947, the Cold War that had emerged between the U.S. and the Soviet Union which led to a breakdown of these agreements. By 1949 all US and Soviet forces had withdrawn from Korea.
THE KOREAN WAR Then, on 25 June 1950, with the backing of the USSR, North Korea made an attempt to take over the border by force. The United States, with the United Nations’ assistance, led a counter-attack and came to the aid of the South. The Soviet Union backed North Korea by offering weapons and communist China also aided the North by providing them with thousands of troops to fight alongside the North Korean military forces.
The South Korean participants, who have been selected and are well enough to travel are driven by bus to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang resort in the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas. The participants are allowed to meet six times for a total of 11 hours during their three-day stay. This is probably the last time they will ever meet. Many people who have not seen each other in years have met thanks to this system. Han Shin-ja, 99, was reunited with two of her daughters, 72 and 71 for the first time in around 65 years and it will also be the last.
In July 1953 the Korean War came to an end. The consequences were huge, with thousands dead and businesses and homes destroyed. Yet there had been no change in the division of the country; the war only got the nation back to the same place it had been in before the war erupted. It was just a waste of lives. In 1954, during the Geneva Conference, it was decided that Korea would remain split. But one important and lasting consequence of the war was that the people of the former unified Korea were no longer allowed to see each other.
86 year old Cho Hye-do and her brother Cho Do-jae, 75, were reunited with their older sister Cho Sun-do, who is 89 and lives in North Korea. “I remember how beautiful you were,” Cho Hyedo told her big sister. “I finally get to meet you after living for so long,” replied the older woman.
THE PEOPLE
Two elderly North Korean women knelt and bowed to their 98-year-old South Korean father, who brought with him red, flower-patterned shoes he had promised his daughters 65 years ago.
The division of Korea into North and South was forced upon the people by external forces, government, and powers that the Korean people had no say in. Although the former Korea is still divided and both North and South have a number of political issues and differences, the people of Korea believe that one day North and South Korea will have to reunite.
These reunions that cross the boundaries are an agonising reminder that there is a boundary and that this will be the only time that these families will see their loved one ever again. Imagine meeting up with your sister, brother, aunt, uncle, mother or father just to be torn apart again the next day. It is like dangling what they had in front of their noses, just out of reach but not out of sight. The artificial boundary that forces them apart is just a line slashed on a map, it only exists because humans made it exist. As a species we are very advanced, but a boundary like this is the very thing that is holding us back.
The closest they have ever come to this was the Summit meeting of 2000. The leaders of North and South Korea sat down in an “effort to discuss what agreements could be reached, and what would be in the best interest of all the citizens, military, and the nation as a whole in Korea”. Small steps were agreed upon to allow relatives separated by the border to see each other once again, albeit for the briefest of moments.
M McCann, Year 9
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