On the 38th Parallel

This chapter focuses on the POW camp on the 38th parallel created by the Custodian Force of India that housed the neutral “explanation” rooms that the Indian delegation had proposed as a resolution to the negotiation impasse at Panmunjom over the topic of POW repatriation. Inside these explanation rooms, prisoners of war would have three choices in terms of repatriation: repatriation, nonrepatriation, or a “neutral” nation. It was an interrogation room for “neutrality,” an early manifestation of nonalignment's vision. Moving from inside the explanation rooms the chapter then traces the journeys of seventy-six Korean prisoners of war who had chosen a “neutral country,” as prisoners of war eventually found their way to Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and India.