North Korean "Wall of Division"

["Joseph S. Bermudez Jr." <jbermudez@qwest.net>]

Several weeks ago there was some discussion of what the North Koreans call
the "wall of division." Here is an excerpt from a 1999 New York Times
article providing their views,


Erik Eckholm. "Where Most See Ramparts, North Korea Imagines a Wall," New
York Times, December 8, 1999, p. 5.

"A North Korean diplomat used a rare news conference here today to rail
against a nonexistent 150-mile-long concrete ''wall of division'' that the
South Koreans supposedly erected 20 years ago across the buffer zone between
North and South.

The diplomat, Chu Chang Jun, is North Korea's longtime ambassador to China,
one of his country's few allies. He demanded the ''immediate dismantling of
the cursed reinforced concrete wall that artificially bisects the nation
that had lived in harmony generation after generation.''

In a ''never to be pardoned criminal act,'' the wall was erected across the
peninsula 20 years ago this Dec. 29, Mr. Chu said. It is ''a huge
structure,'' he said, 16 to 26 feet tall and 33 to 62 feet wide at the base.
Far from a defensive rampart, it is a ''northward invasion bridgehead,'' he
said.

The wall exists only in North Korean propaganda, according to South Korean
and American diplomats and others who have visited the area. But with a
hostile North Korea keeping large numbers of troops and tanks near the
border, the South Koreans, aided by the United States, have strewn large
concrete tank barriers and sentry stations as well as fences and minefields
along their side of the tense demilitarized zone."


Regards,
Joe B.

Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
jbermudez@qwest.net
PGP public key available on request