At break of day on June 18, 1953, the barbed wire around prison camps nationwide including those in Busan, Daegu, Gwangju, and Masan came apart, and prisoners of war began to pour out of the camps. It was the military police of the South Korean Army who helped the prisoners safely find their way out. The baffled U.S. Army began to search for the prisoners with tanks and helicopters, but the residents near the camps hid them and helped them change into civilian clothes.

The massive release of prisoners of war by then president Syngman Rhee shocked the world. About 27,000 North Korean prisoners out of 35,000 who refused to be repatriated to North Korea found freedom. Rhee made a clear statement to the world that he was a man capable of making his own decisions.

A group of female students protesting the armistice and calling for unification gathers in front of the U.S. Embassy in Busan. Rallies against the truce were held nationwide on June 25, 1953, the third anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

The year 1953 saw a change in world politics. In February, Dwight Eisenhower, whose election campaign included a prompt end to the Korean War, was inaugurated as the president of the United States. In March, the Soviet government decided to end the Korean War at the earliest possible date when Stalin died. The truce talks, which had been on hold for a long time, resumed, but Rhee unilaterally announced his opposition to the armistice and said he would push his soldiers to advance northward on April 9. Many Koreans who felt resentful that Korean sentiment was seemingly ignored by the big powers went out to hold massive anti-truce demonstrations.

Rhee’s opposition to the truce came from a strategy to prevent the U.S. from pulling out of the Korean Peninsula, and his decision to free North Korean prisoners of war was one way to put pressure on the U.S. Washington, thinking that postwar military and economic aid was crucial to appeasing Rhee, decided to sign the Korea-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty as South Korea requested. At Panmunjom on July 27, the armistice was signed between the UN troops and North Korea. The sound of gunfire ceased at 10 p.m. on the 155-mile long war front. The July 29 edition of the Chosun Ilbo reported the armistice with the front-page headline, “An Odd Armistice to the War”, focusing on the fact that the main party concerned, South Korea, was excluded from the event.

(englishnews@chosun.com )