09-151.pdf

mined its significance. The pursuit of a “zero-sum game” basically characterized
MAC meetings during the first post-war years. Such a situation
was gradually reinforced to the detriment of implementing the armistice.
Both the KPA/CPV and the UNC violated the agreement, above
all by rearming but also by agreeing to put military police in the DMZ
and instigating incidents in the zone. Reinforcements were also made
in the DMZ, but there were no legal provisions to prevent such a
development. The North immediately imposed restrictions on the
Neutral Nations Inspection Teams’ work to supervise the rotation of
military personnel and introduction of military equipment into the
five ports of entry. However, the UNC also hindered work in the five
ports of entry from spring 1954 onwards. The South regarded the
NNSC as a hinder to rearmaments, making it militarily inferior to the
North. In addition, Czechoslovakia and Poland were regarded as
satellite states of the Soviet Union, obstructing implementation of the
armistice. The Commission’s work was often hampered by the internal
split between Czechoslovakia and Poland in the north and Sweden
and Switzerland in the south. The Commission’s work in 1953-56
became “a mission impossible.”
On May 31, 1956, the UNC/MAC suspended the armistice’s
paragraphs pertaining to the NNSC. Inspection Teams were withdrawn
to Panmunjom, where they then evaluated both parties’ reports
of the status of military equipment and forces. However, after June 21,
1957, when the UNC/MAC cancelled Paragraph 13(d) prohibiting
military reinforcements, the South only reported on forces. In 1957,
the agreement’s supervisory mechanisms had largely ceased to exist;
real politics had made the original provisions impossible to
implement. Yet, the NNSC still contributed to securing peace and after
116 Peace-keeping in the Korean Peninsula