Nicosia, the dusty capital, remains a divided city, where Argentine peacekeepers guard barriers made of oil drums painted blue and white and topped with barbed wire.
To get there we traveled up a dangerously curved and icy mountain road that had no guard barriers; sheer drops of hundreds of feet were not uncommon.
The commemoration, which will take place within a short distance of North Korean soldiers standing watch across the world's most heavily guarded barrier, is a reminder that the armistice was never followed by a peace treaty.
The most serious violation involved the failure of the company, Tortilleria Chinantla, to install a guard barrier on the mixer to prevent employees from coming into contact with its fast-moving machinery, said a spokesman for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which conducted the investigation.
I exited wide, dropped the left front and back wheels into the dirt, spun across the track and into the wet infield grass, then collided head-on with a red steel guard barrier.
Today, there is not only a fence, a big one, but also a lot more: armed guards and barriers and reinforced gates, even electric eyes.
This gingerly approach by authorities — and the challenges it poses — were demonstrated on Saturday when guards removed barriers to allow about 500 monks to walk down the tree shaded street where Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi lives.
My home in Karachi is down the road from an imambargah, and each year brings more elaborate security arrangements: policemen with flashlights have gradually given way to razor wire, road blocks, armed guards, concrete barriers, and even bunkers.
Indeed, when the renowned Rijksmuseum, the city's crown jewel, reopened in April after a 10-year, $500 million renovation, biking lobbyists celebrated a victory when guards removed barriers to a bicycle passageway through the center of the museum.
With city residents increasingly angry at the government for failing to protect them, security officials have been taking extra measures, such as adding guards and barriers around the main diplomatic zone and putting administrative police officers on street patrols.
