U.S. Army soldiers patrolling the DMZ 31
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U.S. Army soldiers patrolling the DMZ 31 |
The Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, is an area of land four kilometers wide which straddles the border between North and South Korea. The area is heavily guarded and regulated; treaties determine who is allowed to enter the area and when. 28
This area is in place to keep the Northern and Southern armies seperated from each other, in the hopes that this will keep war from breaking out again. The two Koreas are officially still at war, though there has been no fighting for decades. The sides seem to be waiting, though, for a justification to start again.
Since the 1970s, the North has been preparing for an invasion of the South by digging tunnels under the DMZ in an attempt to have an easy invasion route. The tunnels are thin, allowing for only a few soldiers to stand side-by-side, but their length (generally over a kilometer long) would allow for a large force to be hidden in them. A number of these tunnels have been found by the South and the forces supporting it, though until recently the North denied any responsibilty for them, claiming that the South must have built them themselves. In 1990, the North admitting building one, but said that it was to "facilitate peaceful reunification" with the South. 29