New student group addresses crisis in North Korea

Within the States, North Korea is almost invariably associated with the face of its eccentric dictator Kim Jong-Il, who has been in power for nearly a decade and half. His totalitarian regime has gained notoriety around the globe for its frequent provocations—the most recent being the torpedoing of the South Korean navy ship Cheonan in March 2010, which resulted in the death of 46 sailors—and its political instability.

Perhaps less well-known, shrouded by national media coverage on North Korea’s latest provocations and endless YouTube videos parodying Kim, are the appalling conditions within North Korea such as widespread famine and a devastating health-care system.

In the early 1990s, more than 2 million lives perished when the first major famine hit North Korea. Since then, countries such as Japan, South Korea, China and the United States have been delivering food packages to North Korea to alleviate the famine.

But a 2008 survey conducted by the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization reveals that the country of 23 million is “at risk of slipping towards precarious hunger levels” and that “most have cut protein from their diets and are living on cereals and vegetables alone” (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/30/nk.un.food/index.html).

The fact that North Korea’s health care system is almost nonexistent and cannot provide basic health-care needs aggravates the famine. Children suffer from malnutrition, and doctors are forced to perform amputations without anesthesia.

North Korea’s famine and health care issues have been gaining more attention within the States. Several Washington, D.C.-based organizations, such as the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Eugene Bell Foundation, have successfully motivated attorneys and members of Congress to join their humanitarian campaigns.

However, it would be safe to say that awareness of the North Korea’s internal predicaments is scarce, if not absent, among American college campuses.

Addressing this lack of awareness is a new student group on campus called LiNK, or Liberty in North Korea, which presented its mission during last Sunday’s banquet in the Gargoyle sponsored by the Asian Multicultural Council.

“Aiming to address the appalling situation in North Korea through organized events and awareness projects on campus,” according to their description, LiNK is the first great initiative on the Wash. U. campus to raise awareness of the human rights crisis in North Korea.

With 185 chapters active in the States, LiNK can bring to light a serious human-rights issue obscured by political tensions. As LiNK brings more awareness to our campus, it is my wish that more students understand that people under Kim’s regime are unfairly neglected because of Kim’s controversial policies.


(2010-09-10/studlife.com)