S. KOREAN ISLE ON WAR FOOTING; FORTRESS-LIKE EXCLAVE LIES CLOSE TO FOE'S SHORE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05T02051R000200350065-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 12, 2011
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: September 23, 1987
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2011/08/12 :CIA-RDP05T02051 8000200350065-0
20TH STORY of Level 1 printed ire FULL format.
Copyright (e) 1987 The Washington Post
September 23, 1987, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A23
LENGTH: 772 words
HEADLINE: S. Korean Isle On War Footing;
Fortress-Like Exclave Lies Close to Fae's Shore
BYLINE: Peter Maass, Special to The Washington Post
DATELINE: PAENGNYONG ISLAND, South Korea
iODY:
"Chic rugged island is like a floating fortress, anchored behind enemy lines.
A geopolitical aridity, the high-security island lies gust a few miles off the
North Korean mainland, 30 minutes away by boat, but belongs to South Korea, a
10-hour boat ride away. On a clear day, North Korea is easily visible across a
narrow strait.
"The soldiers and civilians an this island live under the heavy tension of
the North Korean Army," said a top military officer, speaking to the first gror~p
of foreign journalists to visit this restricted island since the Korean War.
A symbol of the intense rivalry between the two sides, Paengnyong is a place
where the Korean War never really ended. Thirty-five years after the car~flict
was brought to a close without a formal treaty, a curfew remains in place here
and the sandy beaches are off limits to civilians, ringed with coils of
nasty-looking barbed wire. The island bristles with soldiers and militar,~
installations, from camouflaged observation posts dug into hillsides to
sophisticated radar surveillance stations atop mountains.
"Do you feel the atmosphere of war here?" an earnest Navy officer asked,
with a touch of pride in his voice.
South Korean officials point to places like Paengnyong when they feel a need
to justify the repression of civil liberties since 1953. The argument is
straightforward: the military threat from the North requires a firm, sometimes
ruthless hand in domestic politics. Dissent, the reasoning paes, is a luxury
that the South cannot afford.
Dut with the country going through its first free election campaign in
decades, the opposition is challenging the government's human rights record and
its policy toward North Korea. The trip to Paengnyang for foreign journalists
appeared aimed in part at highlighting the northern threat in order to justify
the government's past policies.
About t~,5Q0 civilians live on the island, many of them refugees who fled
North Korea during the war.
To many of South Korea's 40 million citizens, the threat from North Korea
today is as real as the civil war that brought so much death and suffering
:EXIS NEXIS' LEXIS NEXIS`
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 Approved For Release 2011/08/12 :CIA-RDP05T02051 8000200350065-0
(c) 1987 The Washington Post, September 23, 1987
to the country. One top military officer, asked about his memories of the war,
which ended when he was 13, replied in his broken English, "Rod time. Very call.
Very hungry."
Those dark memories and deep-seated anticommunism were echoed by a
middle-aged man in Du Moon .lin, a fishing village nestled beside a small harbor
on the island. "We don't want communists here," he said, speaking through an
interpreter. As several other villagers looked on, the man added: "The North
Koreans will oat attack Paengnyong because we are united and will fight the
communists."
Local military officials recount the fate of five villagers who became
martyrs. Their fishing boat allegedly was attacked by a North Korean Navy vessel
in 197Q. Instead of surrendering, the story goes, four of the islanders are said
to have made suicidal jumps into the icy waters, a fifth was shot. A sixth was
captured and later released. A marble memorial to the men stands next to the
barbed-wire fence that runs between the village and the beach.
A Seoul government press release given to journalists said that North Korean
"provocations" in the straits between the mainland and Paengnyong forced the
island's fishermen to abandon their trade in the early 1970s. Rut the large
number of fishing boats bobbing in the island harbors told a different story.
Local officials said nearly 50 percent of the islanders are fishermen.
According to local military officials, a midnight curfew empties the streets
so that any North Korean spy infiltrated onto the island can be identified.
Military officials admit that they have not found any spies in recent memory,
but they insist that the island's exceptional security has kept away the North
Koreans.
For many of the sentries at military observation posts, the visit of
foreigners seemed to be a welcome break from the tedium of looking out over a
desolate stretch of water. They assumed whatever poses the photographers and
film crews requested. They crouched in front of their machine guns as if firing
at a phantom enemy. They scowled in the direction of North Korea. Then they
lounged around when the lens caps were put back on the cameras.
Still, even the sight of North Korean jets can apparently wreak psychological
havoc on some of the islanders. According to the Navy officer, after two North
Korean fighter jets buzzed Paengnyong a few years ago, hundreds of islanders
took the next boat to Inchar~, the nearest South Korean port. They feared the
outbreak of artother war with North Korea.
GRAPHIC: MAP, NO CAPTION, LARRY FOGEL
TYNE: FOREIGN NEWS
SUE;JECT: KOREA, 50UTH; KOREA, NORTH; MILI~tARY POSTS; CIVIL DEFENSE
ORGANIZATION: PAENGNYONG ISLAND
. N~
Approved For Release 2011/08/12 :CIA-RDP05T02051 8000200350065-0