People looking to join a student group at Tufts have a wide variety of activities to choose from. Tufts has everything a student with too much time on his hands could want, from a cappella to the Monty Python Society.
And now, Tufts students have one more option to choose from: the new Liberty in North Korea, or LiNK, organization, a group dedicated to fighting for the trampled-on rights of the citizens of North Korea.
Founded in 2004, LiNK has branches all over the world. According to LiNK's Web site, it has two main objectives: to educate people on a local level about the human rights crisis in North Korea and to push policy makers to promote resolutions to the crisis. LiNK's mission has resonated with students across the country who have taken it upon themselves to start chapters on their own college campuses.
So far, the worldwide organization's achievements include sending medical supplies to North Korea through the Red Cross in the wake of a devastating train explosion, as well as running underground shelters in China for North Korean refugees. These shelters are illegal and highly dangerous to operate, but volunteers are willing to undertake the risk in order to aid the refugees.
LiNK's mission inspired junior Jinah Kim, now Tufts' LiNK Coordinator, to start a branch on campus. After watching the documentary "Seoul Train," which chronicles the attempts of North Koreans to flee their country, at a LiNK function, Kim sprung into action.
"I realized after seeing that documentary that there was so much I didn't know," she said. "I'm ethnically Korean, and I saw my mom up there on that screen."
Kim was unable to start a chapter last year, as it was too late in the semester. But after attending a LiNK summit in Los Angeles over the summer, Kim returned to school determined to start a chapter at Tufts.
Despite the dedication of its members, the future of the Tufts chapter is far from certain. The group has not yet been recognized by the judiciary as an official Tufts organization. "We're taking this one step at a time," Kim said.
Nevertheless, LiNK is confident that it will gain official status and will be able to gain the student body's support. The group's plans for the near future include screening "Seoul Train" in the hopes of getting more people involved.
While Kim acknowledges that there are limits to what students can do, she believes that it's important for people to contribute in any way they can. "We are students, and we can't go march in there and save every North Korean by hand, but we can speak for those who can't," Kim said.
The totalitarian nature of the North Korean government has been well-documented. Professor John Perry of the Fletcher School has visited North Korea 30 times and has published articles about the experience in Foreign Policy Magazine. "Without a doubt, it's a brutal and repressive regime, and people who do not agree with the regime just disappear," Perry said.
According to Perry, freedom of speech is almost nonexistent in North Korea, and pressure from the citizens is unlikely to affect the government, which Perry described as simply "unresponsive to the will of its people."
In addition, the isolationist and secretive North Korean regime hides information about its operations, making it difficult for outsiders to influence its treatment of its citizens. "We know so little about the political process in North Korea," Perry said.
Perry also compared the workings of the North Korean government to "Stalinist Communism."
The country is well on its way to becoming a nuclear power. North Korea said Sunday night that it had set off its first nuclear test, two days after the United Nations Security Council warned it that such action would lead to serious consequences, according to the New York Times. The test elicited talk in the Bush administration of creating additional sanctions against North Korea, which could make LiNK's job even more difficult.
While effecting change will certainly be a challenge, Perry said that forgetting about the country altogether is the wrong course of action: "I don't believe in ignoring North Korea," he said. "I think we do that at our cost."
So far, LiNK has seen success in gathering student interest: Approximately 40 people showed up for their first meeting on Sept. 28, which exceeded the organizers' expectations. Freshman Loan Nguyen came to see what LiNK was about because she was interested in their focus on human rights work. Nguyen was particularly moved by a short film about North Korean daily life shown during the meeting.
"I saw the video, and I was like, 'I have to do this,'" Nguyen said.
Sophomore Sandy Tang was also at the meeting, and she, too, is pulling for the group to succeed. "I have a lot of hope for this," Tang said.
