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Kim (2003) notes that since the supervisory task of the NNSC<br />

had become paralyzed there were no longer any systemic measures to<br />

prevent reinforcements of military power that were speeded up throughout<br />

the 1960s. Rearmaments were the main reason for military tension<br />

in the Korean peninsula during the latter half of the 1960s. On the<br />

other hand, Major General Wikland wrote in his report for winter<br />

1961-62 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the task of the NNSC,<br />

without any exaggeration, could be labelled an “impartial eye” at the<br />

border line between the Eastern and the Western blocks at a point so<br />

infected that violations against the armistice could be brought to the<br />

fore very rapidly. Authoritative observers had certified that the<br />

significance of the NNSC as an “observation agency” at the front could<br />

not be questioned; through its mere presence in the DMZ, the NNSC<br />

reduced tension. The similarity with the positive evaluations in Chapter<br />

2 is striking.<br />

In 1961, the Swedish officer Bror-Johan Geijer wrote that the<br />

NNSC was one of the few remaining signs that the Armistice Agreement<br />

remained in force. He argued that a neutral commission ready to<br />

act had a role to play due to the severe tension between the two Koreas.<br />

However, on October 16, 1961, relations between the NNSC and the<br />

KPA/CPV deteriorated for the first time due to conflicts with North<br />

Korean drivers in the Swiss Camp. Consequently, the UNC prohibited<br />

North Korean drivers from driving to the Swedish-Swiss camp.<br />

sudan’ hyônhwang-gwa kwaje,” in Kim (ed.), DMZ IV - ch’ôn kûrigo, cho, hang, t’an,<br />

chôn (Seoul: Tosô ch’ulp’an Sohwa, 2001), p. 154; Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A<br />

Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy (Lawrence, Kansas: University<br />

Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 1<strong>09</strong>; Wikland, Slutrapport efter tjänst som kontingentschef<br />

för Swedish Group Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission in Korea (N.N.S.C),<br />

Underbilaga H 1, p. 2 (n.p., March 1, 1962). Original quotation marks.<br />

124 Peace-keeping in the Korean Peninsula

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