Munsan Journal
For South Koreans at North’s Edge, Drumbeat of War Is More of a Patter
By MARTIN FACKLER
Some residents of Munsan, South Korea, which sits on the edge of the
tense border with the North, have learned to accept the dangers, and try
to focus on enjoying their daily lives.
Jean Chung for The New York Times
Pedestrians walk past
apartment buildings in Munsan, a distant suburb of the South Korean
capital that sits on the edge of the demilitarized zone.
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: April 5, 2013
MUNSAN, South Korea — As Lee Jae-eun retrieved her squirming twins from
day care and loaded them into a two-seat stroller, she barely glanced up
at the olive green Blackhawk helicopter that swept overhead, just above
the high-rise apartment buildings.
Multimedia
Related
-
Tensions With North Korea Unsettle South’s Economy (April 6, 2013)
Jean Chung for The New York Times
South Korean soldiers patrol next to the
demilitarized zone, or DMZ, which lies where the fighting stopped 60
years ago.
Even in peaceful times, low-flying military aircraft are a common sight
in this residential community near the heavily fortified border that
separates capitalist South Korea from the communist North. But these are
not placid times, and the roaring helicopters are one more reminder of
rising tensions wrought by North Korea’s recent barrage of war threats.
Still, said Ms. Lee, a 34-year-old homemaker, residents have resigned
themselves to living with the constant risk, and occasional tantrums,
from their bellicose northern neighbor.
“Sure, our radar is up to new danger,” she said, holding one of her
year-old daughters and surrounded by other mothers picking up their
children. “But living here makes you used to it. It’s not such a big
deal.”
In recent weeks, the heavily armed North’s cherub-faced young leader,
Kim Jong-un, has threatened South Korea and the United States with
nuclear attack, declaring that a “state of war” exists on the Korean
Peninsula. Refusing to be cowed, South Korea’s newly elected president,
Park Geun-hye, the democratic nation’s first female leader, responded by
ordering her generals to strike back if provoked.
Despite the steady drum beat of war talk, life seems to go on as usual
in most of South Korea, the industrial powerhouse that lifted itself
from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War to become one of Asia’s
economic success stories. Nowhere is the determination to hold on to the
South’s hard-won middle-class living standards more apparent than in
Munsan, a distant suburb of the South Korean capital of Seoul that sits
on the edge of the tense border: the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, which
lies where the fighting stopped 60 years ago.
Once a collection of farming villages known for their local delicacy of
tasty eel, Munsan was transformed into a fast-growing suburb of tall
white apartment buildings and neon-lighted shops a decade ago during an
era of political rapprochement with the North and soaring property
prices in the fast-growing South. More recently, development has slowed
after the global financial crisis hurt the South’s export-driven economy
and new tensions with the North have scared away some prospective
buyers.
Some of the 47,000 residents who live here now say they have learned to
accept the helicopters’ near-constant rattling of their windows, and the
columns of tanks that sometimes block roads during training exercises,
making their children late for school. They say they have also learned
how to ignore the rows of concrete bunkers and guard towers along the
highway they use every morning to commute to Seoul, 35 miles to the
south.
They just tune out the dangers and focus on enjoying their daily lives.
“Korea is the most dangerous place in the world, but we are numb to it,”
said Song Hyun-young, an employee in the real estate department of Paju
city hall, which has jurisdiction over the town of Munsan. “If
something happens, we will all die together, so I don’t really think
about it.”
When pressed, many residents admit to feeling anxiety about the
intensity of the North’s most recent threats, and the fact that its new
nuclear arsenal is controlled by an untested, unpredictable leader. Some
also partly blame their own country for imposing sanctions on the
North, a closed and impoverished country.
“To be honest, the talk of nuclear attack is much scarier this time,”
said Ms. Lee, the mother of the twins. “I think North Korea is cornered,
and anyone who is cornered will strike back.”
Responding to such concerns, Paju city employees held an evacuation
drill last week with the police, firefighters and the army. In the event
of an attack, residents would be led to one of nine new underground
bomb shelters, which were built by the city after the North’s last
violent provocation, the artillery bombardment of a South Korean island
three years ago that killed two civilians. The shelters have been
freshly stocked with flashlights, medicine, gas masks and first-aid
kits, officials said.
But most residents have not taken similar precautions. None of the more
than half-dozen residents interviewed said they were stockpiling food or
supplies. Many said they were optimistic that such preparations were
unnecessary. They were confident, they said, that the bonds of shared
ethnicity between the two Koreas would prevail over political
differences, and prevent the North from following through on its
apocalyptic threats.
“The world thinks we are on the brink of war, but we are fine,” said
Gong Soon-hee, 55, a real estate agent whose small office was filled
with wall-size maps showing a checkerboard of privately owned plots that
abruptly end at the edge of the DMZ, just a few miles away. “Koreans
are good people, kind people, not stupid people who would just start a
war suddenly.”
Despite the tensions, Ms. Gong said, new homebuyers continue to trickle
in, lured by prices that have dropped to less than one-tenth of those in
central Seoul. Most give no sign of noticing a formation of helicopters
flying overhead as they check out apartment units, she said.
“I guess we could hide in an underground parking garage if the shells
start falling,” she said, “but we don’t bother with escape plans.”
Others said the current standoff cast a spotlight on the fact that in
the face of the North’s threats, the South was in the weaker position
because it has so much more to lose. Some said South Korea’s biggest
vulnerability was its unwillingness to sacrifice its much higher living
standards to essentially buy off the North.
“If this is just going to continue until we give aid, then let’s just
give them some aid,” Park Soon-yi, a 44-year-old homemaker, said with a
laugh. But she was only half-joking, as she shopped in the upmarket
Hillstate high-rise condominium and retail complex. “Then they’ll be
quiet, and leave us in peace.”
copy http://www.nytimes.com
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário