The ‘Enemy Cemetery’
This is the hidden place, close to the border, where the South buries the bodies of soldiers from the North killed during the Korean War that it finds on its territory, as well as infiltrators and spies killed during their secret missions.
Offered by an unknown admirer, a bottle of Chinese liquor, a pack of cigarettes (also Chinese) and a bouquet of faded flowers honour the grave of an anonymous North Korean soldier.
Almost unknown and virtually hidden, the Military Cemetery for North Korean soldiers - known locally as the “Enemy Cemetery” - is located beside a highway south of the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Paju City, northeast of Seoul.
There are no signs indicating how to get to these two neighboring graveyards, located on a hilltop bordered by vegetable gardens.
In Graveyard II, South Korea buries the bodies of North Korean soldiers killed during the Korean War (1950-1953) that it finds on its territory during battlefield excavations. Infiltrators and spies killed in the South from 1953 to present rest in Graveyard I.
The cemetery was established in 1996. The hundreds of graves, most of them unidentified, face north as a sign of respect.
The graves of unknown North Korean soldiers face North as a sign of respect.
North Korea, which is only 5 km away, never claimed the bodies, as it considers they are already buried in Korean soil. Also, this would have meant admitting responsibility for several bloody clandestine operations against the South, whose perpetrators now enjoy eternal rest here.
The site was also the burial ground for 541 Chinese volunteers, who were later repatriated to their homeland and now rest in the “Resist America and Aid Korea Martyrs Cemetery” in Shenyang, China.
The site is maintained to a minimum, and obviously receives few visitors. Rumor has it that the South Korean intelligence services have placed hidden cameras in the cemetery to spot and identify North Korean sympathizers who have come to pay their respects…
A faded Korean Unification Flag - the one that has been used since 1991 at international sporting events when the two sides compete within a unified team - flies over the grave of an unidentified North Korean infiltrator.
The fact is these sympathizers do exist. Occasionally, wilted flowers and offerings of alcohol or cigarettes can be found on some of the flat graves with engraved stone markers.
Among the “celebrities” buried here are Kim Sung Il, a North Korean agent who co-perpetrated the mid-air bombing of a Korean Air plane en route from Baghdad to Seoul in 1987, killing 115 people. Kim, 70, died by biting into an ampule of cyanide hidden in a cigarette case during his arrest (the other perpetrator, Kim Hyon Hui, 25, survived. She was sentenced to death, pardoned, and now lives a normal life in South Korea).
Graveyard I is also the final resting place of 29 of the 31 members of Unit 124, which infiltrated South Korea in January 1968 with the aim of assassinating dictator Park Chung Hee, but were neutralized after an intense manhunt.
Of the two soldiers who survived this failed attack, one made it back to North Korea, while the other remained in the South Korea, became a pastor and is still alive nowadays.
Nobody knows if he ever visited the cemetery to pay his respects to his fallen former comrades.
