 A South Korean guard in Cheolwon County, Gangwon Province, in late 2013. | Image: Yonhap |
North Korean soldiers violated the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) that divides North and South Korea on a number of occasions this calendar year, according to the Ministry of National Defense. The actions are thought to have been experimental, and designed to test the South Korean military posture.
At a regular briefing on July 8th, ministerial spokesperson Kim Min Seok explained, “North Korean troops have been very active within the DMZ this year. In the process they have crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) three or four times, and on one occasion we used warning shots to force them back.”
According to the military authorities, the most recent such incident was on June 19th at 2:20 pm, when at least two North Korean soldiers crossed the MDL near Paju in Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul.
CCTV recorded at the time shows two North Korean soldiers breaking a bell set up to aid defecting North Korean soldiers before escaping back to the North, an operation that took just two minutes. Military authorities confirm that the North Korean soldiers were in an area less than 700 m from a South Korean guard post, but the soldiers there were unaware of it because the North Koreans did not touch the fence, and therefore avoided activating automatic sensors.
Since the “Knock Knock Defection” case of September 2012, in which a North Korean soldier sought to defect across the DMZ and was able to walk up to the barracks of a South Korean unit and knock on the door, there have been warnings that South Korea’s front-line defenses are too porous. With this latest case, the same criticisms are returning.
“In the event that they were arrested and questioned, they would say that it was an accident that occurred while on patrol, but in truth these are deliberate attempts to test South Korean readiness,” a senior defector and former officer in the Chosun People’s Army told Daily NK. “These sorts of things are going to continue.”
New Minister of National Defense Han Min Gu told the National Assembly Defense Committee something similar on the 7th, adding, “We are aware that there have recently been North Korean Special Forces training exercises and tests of bravery.”
The MDL, which is approximately 250 km in length, is not marked by barbed-wire fences but rather by yellow signboards evenly spaced every 200 m. The line 2 km north of the MDL is the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and the line 2 km south is the Southern Limit Line (SLL). The 4 km space in between these two lines is the DMZ.
The NLL and SLL are demarcated using barbed wire, and soldiers operate across the full span of both lines. There are also guard posts inside, between the SLL and the MDL, and additional barbed wire between these guard posts. It is here where the defection bells are installed.
