Peace is possible: The Demilitarized Zone experience
By Dr. Marivir Montebon
"Yesterday, we went to a demilitarized zone. I wish that the world is a demilitarized area." Rima Salah, Special Deputy Representative to then UN Secretary General Banki Moon
Seoul - Walking into the peace forest of South Korea’s Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) felt like entering the poster-perfect scene of ‘Crash Landing on You,’ the Korean drama that I avidly watched. The soft spring of life was in sight - fresh green leaves and gentle buds of flowers. This time, however, it was for real.
Forty-three of us women walking hand in hand into a DMZ peace forest and garden. I was bewildered by the serenity and beauty of having a peaceful strip of land.
It’s the event of a lifetime, I should say, that I shared this experience with some 43 women leaders from the US in the 2025 Korea Peace Pilgrimage to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of global organization Women’s Federation for World Peace.
Day 1 of the pilgrimage on April 11, 2025, was marked by a peace tour at the DMZ, a portion of the 248-mile peace buffer zone between North and South of the Korean peninsula.
With utmost care by the WFWP USA and Korea, we were served lunch and given a guided tour of the demilitarized facilities of the defunct Camp Greaves which is now a historical and cultural site.
Our group was a happy mix of women from different ages and cultural backgrounds – Filipino, French, Korean, Jewish, Palestinian, Jamaican, Haitian, Iraqi, and Latin. Our head guide, a young military officer with a good sense of humor, instructed us to which areas are okay to take pictures, and not to wander around because the land may still have undiscovered landmines. Landmines! That transformed our excitement to mindfulness.
Soon after our museum tour, we drove and walked to the peace forest and had tea and home-grown pastries in a Peace Garden owned and developed by a local woman entrepreneur whose grandfather fought in the Korean War. She spoke in Korean and translated for us in English that she had the support of the South Korean government in establishing her enterprise in the peace zone.
Sharing our thoughts while having tea and rice cookies. We’re in a K drama poster perfect place at the Peace Garden.
Topmost photo are UN representatives from the US headed by Merly Barlaan, UN Relations Director (2nd from left). Dr. Rima Salah, erstwhile Deputy Chief of UNICEF and Special Deputy Representative to former UN Sec. Gen. Banki Moon was in our group. She’s flanked by Merly Barlaan, Juliet Hatulan, and Balla Mahmood on the mid-left photo. The lower left photo shows the Korean entrepreneur telling us her story on how she developed her Peace Garden inside the DMZ.
While having tea and rice cookies, we reflected and shared our thoughts on the experience. What a nourishment for the soul it was for me. Peace is possible, given the willingness of the people and the support they badly need from the community and government.
On Day 2 of our pilgrimage on April 12, Dr. Rima Salah, erstwhile deputy chief of UNICEF and Special Deputy Representative to former UN Secretary-general Banki Moon shared her poignant reflection after visiting the DMZ.
"Yesterday, we went to a demilitarized zone. I wish that the world is a demilitarized area," she said in her speech during the 33rd anniversary celebration of WFWP at the World Summit 2025 with the International Association of First Ladies for Peace assembly.
Salah highlighted that 2024 was the worst year for children because of wars in Ukraine, Palestine, and several parts of Africa. In a recorded interview, she noted that peace must be based on justice, citing that every human being, and especially children, must have justice.
At the IAFLP assembly at Lotte Hotel, women leaders articulated the need to end armed conflicts and focus on education to ensure peace and justice.
The words of Costa Rican First Lady Signe Zeikate were inspiring, "Conflicts are resolved through dialogue rather than force." Costa Rica, she said proudly, is the first democracy in Latin America, the happiest country in Latin America, and the 6th happiest country in the world.
Dr. Carla Ochotorena, university president of the Western Mindanao State University in the Philippines said, "Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice and dignity for all. Education is the weapon for peace, not arms."
Looking back at my DMZ tour, it certainly was a spiritually enriching journey – that peace is possible, if we, local and global leaders, all decide it to be so. #
(This essay was first published on the WFWP website https://www.wfwp.org/latest-un-news/peace-is-possible-the-demilitarized-zone-experience.)
