Panmunjom


Background

Panmunjom is located in Korea, and in 1951 Panmunjom it was the location where the UNtalked with the Korean and Chinease military leaders about the boundary of where the communist side of Korea would end, this would lead to having peace in Panmunjom. By 1951 the Korean war had already been going on for a year and had already had peace conferences, however none had put a stop to the war. In 1951 the UN began to make progess but their progress came to a stop due to the  Supreme Commander General Ridgway also known asMatthew Bunker Ridgway. Soon after the UN activities came to a stop the declaration of the "Little Armistice"[1]  was passed on November 26th of 1951 and ended December 27th 1951 While the Little armistice was being passed the UN proposed an ideas however rejected. As the peace talks continued, the war also continued on through 1952. Durring May of 1952  Chinease and North Korea war prisoners began to have riots, at that time the US troops were called in to put a stop to the riots. The truce talks still continued on and in the year 1953 Josef Stalin died and the UN tried once more t to propose "the little switch"[2] was finally excepted. Then in April of 1953 the peace talks at Panmunjom started all over again. On July 27th 1953 a cease-fire agreement also known as the "big switch"[3]was agreed. 

Significance 

Panmunjom 1951 was important to the US becuase it was what stopped the Korean War. The Korean War was about who was going to control the Korea peninsula, the communist in the north or non-communist in the south. In a way the Korea War was a preview of the Viet Nam war. The UN was talking to Korea about how to settle the war and where the boundary would be, Panmunjom was one of the UN's hardest issues to resolve[4]. However they were able to resolve the problem and keep peace in the country. Not only did this make the UN look good it also stopped a war from getting any worse and adding even more dangers to surrounding countries.

 

Footnotes

  1. http://cpedia.com/wiki?q=Panmunjom+Armistice&guess_ambig=Panmunjom+South+Korean+Koreas+Demilitarized+Korean+War+Pyongyang
  2. http://www.state.nj.us/military//korea/factsheets/opswitch.html
  3. http://www.state.nj.us/military//korea/factsheets/opswitch.html
  4. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/united_nations_korean_war.htm