Campus activism converged with international action Tuesday night as students and “nomads” discussed North Korean politics.
Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a nonprofit organization that helps North Korean refugees reach safety, hosted the event in Lecture Hall to enlighten the Binghamton University campus to the North Korean people’s plight. Will Wisz, a nomad or a traveling speaker with LiNK, gave the presentation to a crowd of a few dozen students.
“We want to show you what the North Korean people are really up against,” Wisz said. “There are so many issues surrounding people’s thoughts and perceptions on the country.”
The presentation was aimed at shifting the image of North Korea from one of nuclear missiles and dictators to an image of regular people living under an oppressive regime, and emphasized human rights.
While some parts of the event had an optimistic tone for change and improvement, other parts focused on the brutal nature of the North Korean regime by showing smuggled footage of extremely graphic and violent interactions between the North Korean police and citizens.
“They are reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps and Soviet Gulags,” Wisz said. “But they still exist today.”
LiNK changed its philosophy in 2008 to focus on helping citizens instead of solely raising awareness. The organization’s activities are divided into three categories: rescue, resettlement and narrative. While the narrative portion involves speaking to students on college campuses and other informational programs, most of the funding is funneled into direct aid for people in the process of fleeing North Korea.
LiNK spends about $3,000 per person who it helps escape the Kim regime and have in total rescued about 335 refugees. They intend to rescue another 200 refugees this year. Money is raised by individual contributions, corporate donors and events, and totaled nearly $1.5 million in 2013 alone.
The exact process by which these refugees escape is confidential so as not to compromise the migrants’ safety. However, LiNK does ground work in China in order to assist the refugees on their journey. This includes helping them once they have gotten to China by providing shelter and ensuring they are not deported back to North Korea.
The Binghamton University branch of LiNK hosts several events each semester and brings in LiNK “nomads” to raise money and awareness. Yoon Sun Na, the president of LiNK at BU and a senior majoring in sociology, said that the group plans to bring a real North Korean defector to campus named Chalryong Seo next week to speak about his experiences.
“It’s important to do events like these so people can see North Korea in a different way,” Sun Na said.
Many of the students at the event had deep ties to this issue. Several who originally came to BU from South Korea asked questions about the South Korean emotional sentiment toward North Korea, as the countries are at war, and about the organization’s stance on Korean reunification.
“It’s hard to change people’s feelings but maybe it is part of the long term,” Wisz said. “We believe in the complete self-determination of the North Korean people and are only focused on helping people get out of the country right now.”