(Yonhap Feature) Border town hit hard as inter-Korean relations dip

By Kim Hyun
GOSEONG, South Korea, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- On winter holidays, this northernmost
county on the east coast would formerly bustle with tourists stopping by on their
way to a snow-covered North Korean picturesque mountain. But shops and
restaurants are eerily quiet this winter as the inter-Korean border remains shut.

After a decade of continuous growth, the tourism industry in Goseong county,
Gangwon Province, has ground to a rapid halt. The county's pristine attractions
near the inter-Korean border appear abandoned and desolate after the abrupt
closure of the Mount Kumgang tour program in July following a shooting death of a
South Korean tourist, a housewife, at the mountain resort.
"Locals opened dried fish shops, restaurants and inns and expanded them with
loans, but losses are mounting for all," said Jeon Hee-seo, chief of Kumgangsan
Condominium, a major accommodation center located in the farthest north of
Goseong.
He says the condominium's own revenue has dropped by 30 percent since the tour
was suspended. Its major customers -- secondary schools making group trips to
Kumgang -- all canceled their reservations.
The Goseong county is feeling the sting as the inter-Korean stalemate continues
onto the New Year with no signs of improvement. In its New Year message, North
Korea hinted at a change to its largely sour relations with the United States but
lambasted the South Korean government as "fascist" and "sycophantic and
treacherous."
Pyongyang cut off dialogue the past year, in retaliation to South Korean
President Lee Myung-bak's hardline stance on its nuclear weapons program and
human rights condition. Seoul suspended its customary rice and fertilizer aid to
the North.
The shooting death dealt a decisive blow to already unraveling inter-Korean
relations. A 53-year-old housewife from Seoul, Park Wang-ja, was shot dead by a
North Korean soldier while strolling along the resort's beach on July 11, but
Pyongyang rejected Seoul's demand for a joint probe. North Korea defended the
shooting as self-defense, saying the victim had defied warnings to stop.
The Lee government suspended the tour the following day. The continuing row
prompted the resignation of chief executives of Hyundai Asan Co., an affiliate of
Hyundai Group that operates the tour project in North Korea.
Few expected the suspension would be this long. The tour continued even in
chillier times -- including a naval clash in 2002, during which six South Korean
soldiers died and 18 were injured in a cross-fire with a North Korean vessel that
entered the South Korean waters in the Yellow Sea.
The Kumgang tour has been a major landmark in thawing inter-Korean relations,
launched in 1998 as a brainchild of the late Hyundai Group founder, Chung
Ju-yung, who was born in North Korea. The tour first operated by sea until a
faster and cheaper land route opened in 2003. The number of tourists continued to
grow rapidly, from 240,000 in 2006 to 350,000 in 2007. Nearly 2 million South
Koreans have visited the scenic mountain.
Park Myeong-ja, 43, waited for New Year tourists to drop by at her dried fish
shop, but not a single visitor came.
"We didn't expect the tour would be suspended so long. There have been accidents
before, but the tour continued," Park said on a recent holiday afternoon, warming
herself over a charcoal heater.
Tour buses returning from Mount Kumgang would usually stop by, and her sales
would easily reach 3 million to 4 million won (approximately US$3,000) a day in
the peak autumn and spring seasons, when the picturesque foliage of the mountains
draws most tourists. Her spacey leased shop, which opened in the year that the
overland Kumgang tour started, is now ominously quiet, and she had to let her two
clerks go in November. She can't even close it, because no one would take it
over.
"It's good to try to change the North Koreans' attitude, but the government
should know many are dying here," Park said.
The Goseong County Office reports increasing closures of restaurants and
subsequent job losses. In the October peak season, the amount of money circulated
in the county fell by 23 percent to 42.6 billion won from 55.7 billion won from a
year earlier. The brand new blue and white Hyundai Asan building where tourists
used to gather by 7 a.m. to leave for Mount Kumgang on tour buses every day now
remains closed and buried under heavy snow.
Hyundai Asan says its losses over the past five months surpassed 80 billion won.
Its US$640 million investment on Mount Kumgang is tied down in North Korea, along
with even more money injected in other inter-Korean projects. Losses are also
snowballing for dozens of smaller firms that jointly developed hotels,
restaurants and a golf course on the mountain.
Cho Kun-shik, the new chief executive of Hyundai Asan and a former vice
unification minister, called the impasse "a life or death struggle" and urged the
Seoul government to declare unconditional resumption of the Mount Kumgang tour.
But President Lee has vowed no shift in Seoul's stance toward Pyongyang as long
as it refuses to talk.
The suspended inter-Korean tour gave a slight boost to the Unification
Observatory, the closest place from where one could view Mount Kumgang before it
was opened to South Koreans.
"Since the overland tour opened, tourists coming here had decreased by one
third," said Park Jeong-gil, a 34-year-old native of Goseong who explains the
telescopic view of Kumgang to tourists at the hilltop observatory. The roads to
Mount Kumgang are now empty, perched along sandy beaches that have never been
touched by a human hand for nearly six decades.
"People wanted to go to North Korea, rather than just watch from here," he said.
"It seems now they are returning, just to be able to watch."
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)