An eerie tension is building up on the border between South and North Koreas as the South is amassing troops to take punitive action against the communist North.The tension is also threatening future of Kaeseong, a joint industrial zone, which has often been touted as a model for Pakistan and India to build cooperative relationship along the Line of Control (LoC).
The tension runs high after a North Korean submarine torpedoed a 1,200-tonne South Korean ship, killing over 50 sailors.
It is almost a replica of Operation Parakaram that India launched immediately after December 13, 2001 attacks on the Indian parliament; South Korean military divisions are marching with tanks, artillery and an assortment of American weaponry towards borders alongside Seoul announcing retaliatory measures against its Northern peer. At the Itaewon US military base near Seoul, marines and commandos seem gearing up for an assault.
Railway stations and bus stations in South Korea are full with young soldiers in their battle dresses, kissing their girlfriends and bidding adieu to their families. Leaves have been cancelled and rumours are thick in Seoul that government is even drafting young men into the army in an emergency.
At the Dorasan military station overlooking North Korea, a senior military officer with maps and sketches is briefing the visiting Japanese delegation about South Korean plans. As visitors, mostly Western tourists, were allowed inside the hall, I asked the officer, if his operations would be different from Operation Parakaram, which failed to achieve any objective for India eight years ago, he looks in surprise and replies curtly that he has not studied the Indian operation.
South Korea has barred many nationalities from visiting the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), including West Asians, North Africans, Afghanis and Pakistanis. Indians are still friends as my guides agreed to take me on the DMZ tour after they saw my Indian passport.
The DMZ dividing Korea into communist north and capitalist south is one of the last relics of the cold war. This was a unique area where tensions and peace coexisted for over the past 60 years. It serves as a buffer zone between confronting ideologies.
The Korean tension is also threatening the future of Kaeseong Industrial Complex, the last remaining inter-Korean reconciliatory business. Analysts have often cited this as an apt model for Pakistan and India to begin a cooperative relationship across the LoC in Kashmir.
Set up in 2002 as a collaborative economic development, the industrial part is located ten kilometres inside North Korea housing 116 South Korean companies employing 42,000 North Korean low-wage employees.
The Unification Ministry, which overlooks the park has sent safety guidelines to South Koreans at the industrial park advising them to refrain from making contact with North Korean officials, stop moving around unnecessarily, particularly at night, and not to carry DVDs or printed North Korean materials.
A government official said, "It is likely that the North will threaten South Korean staff in the industrial park when we introduce sanctions against them. We're worried because we don't have any good ideas to deal with this." A local analyst Kim So-Iyhen believes that without a political thaw in relations, economic cooperation doesn't last long, citing the case of Northern Ireland, where economic cooperation began after a political accord between Britain and Republic of Ireland.