Women Cross DMZ, a venerable group of women made up of 30 international leaders, thinkers and activists, crossed the DMZ together in 2015. This was quite a remarkable feat, considering that they were assembled in Pyongyang, North Korea, where thousands of people cheered them on, and that they had traversed the world’s most fortified border southward into the arms of South Korean women waiting to greet them. They concluded the event with a promise to cross the DMZ a year later, this time, going from the South to the North.

Nothing like this had been done before, ever since the 38th Parallel (forerunner to DMZ) was installed as a permanent line that divided the Korean peninsula in 1945. Why did these women leaders do it?

I quote the group’s website: “The unresolved Korean conflict gives all governments in the region justification to further militarize and prepare for war, depriving funds for schools, hospitals, and the welfare of the people and the environment. That’s why women are walking and will continue to work across boundaries to help reunite families and realize peace in Korea for world peace.”

This year 2016, the group gathered on the south side of the border in front of the Imjingak area near Paju, South Korea. There is a peace park in Imjingak, a peace bell inside a Korean style pavilion, and a large boulder that has seen endless tears by the members of the separated families. For over 70 years, people have come and stood in front of this boulder, thought to be the closest spot to their homes that they had left in the North. Thousands upon thousands of people have come here on holidays and special days like their mother’s birthdays and jesa days, to remember their families back home in the North. They have wailed, crying out “Omoni—” as if by shouting loud and long enough they could reach their beloved mother miles away.

From Imjingak, the Women Cross DMZ group, numbering about 800, entered the DMZ, sanctioned by the proper authorities in the South. The marchers walked 6 kilometers through the area which is normally closed to the public and returned to Imjingak. 

But wait. Weren’t they supposed to walk through the DMZ to the North? But alas, the original plan of marching from the South to the North was scrubbed on account of the shaky relations the Koreas are experiencing at the moment. Fair enough. But what was the point of walking through one-half of the DMZ, when their mission calls for “working across boundaries to help reunite families and realize peace in Korea”? Second question: Why were they refused entrance to the North, at a time when Pyongyang is launching an unprecedented peace offensive, calling for a high level North-South conference on military matters? Allowing the Women Cross DMZ group enter the north side would have made much more sense, in my view.

No matter, I applaud the women’s effort to bring about peace in the peninsula. I truly think that women could solve the Korean problem, which men have failed to do over a period of seven decades. Men, true to the history of mankind, tried to solve the problem by waging a war, which cost millions of lives and left behind millions of separated families. It is time to leave behind the archaic zero-sum merry-go-round that has plagued us and look for new ways to bring about true peace.

To that end, the group is calling for a permanent peace treaty. The North has repeatedly called for a peace treaty, too. However, the North’s refusal to allow the women cross through the DMZ leads me to wonder if its definition of peace treaty is different from that of Women Cross DMZ.

What concerns me about treaties that Pyongyang has entered to date — including the 1953 truce that ended the 3-year war — is the fact that the North is prone to violate them. According to the Korea Herald, the North has violated the truce 221 times and carried out military attacks 26 times, as of 2011. This, despite the 1953 armistice, and the 1992 non-aggression agreement that the two Koreas have entered. It is reasonable to assume that any new treaty would be subject to violation, if we have learned anything from our past experiences.

One saving grace about these truce violations is the fact that they have not resulted in a catastrophe such as the Korean War. In other words, the South and the North have gotten along, in a manner of speaking, with minimum damage, and that violations of the truce agreement have been manageable. The question is, how will we manage violations of the so-called permanent peace treaty? What options are there when this peace treaty is violated? I suggest that a peace treaty with Pyongyang would not necessarily mean peace.  We must be careful when we speak of a peace treaty. If we are imagining a peace treaty that promises a brilliant rainbow over the DMZ forever, think again.

I look forward to the day when we can come and go freely without anyone telling us that we can or can’t. I hope Women Cross DMZ will succeed in tearing down the fence so I can follow them, and walk through the DMZ, unencumbered.

By John H. Cha

John H. Cha lives and writes in Oakland, California. He has written several volumes of biographies about Korean and American leaders, including “Willow Tree Shade: The Susan Ahn Cuddy Story,” “The Do Or Die Entrepreneur,” “Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il,” and “A Small Key Opens Big Doors.” Cha is an award-winning translator of Korean literature into English. ― Ed.