Operation Sunshine Continues

LiNK is asking for your help to shame South Korea’s government into showing some concern for the 23 million Korean citizens living North of the DMZ:

LiNK is amassing a giant collection of “messages to the president” which we shall put on a banner to be delivered to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to show him that the people of Korea and the world are watching how he deals with the North Korean human rights crisis.

Here’s how it works:

1) write a message to President Roh about North Korea on a piece of paper. Write in Korean, English, Chinese, Swahili…the language doesn’t matter, it’s the message!

2) Take a picture of you holding the message. You can cover your eyes, mouth, or even your whole face, whatever you prefer. [example and much more here]

3) Send the picture to korea@linkglobal.org

4) Pat yourself on the back for making a difference!

There’s much more to see at LiNK’s site, including their confrontation of former UniFiction Minister Park Jae-Kyu at a posh hotel:

LiNK members asked him simply: “Our banners read that 6.5 million North Koreans are now without regular rations. That more than 200,000 North Koreans suffer in a network of over 12 political prison camps. That thousands of North Koreans in China are in hiding and in danger of repatriation. Can you at least tell us that these statistics are true?”

Mr. Park responded, “I have never seen these things with my own eyes.”

Mr. Park is today President of Kyungnam University, which features one of the leading schools on North Korean studies in Korea. The fact that he would not even confirm the very existence of concentration camps which have been attested to by survivors, former guards, thousands of refugees and satellite pictures was enormously disappointing, but not surprising.

LiNK has also unsheathed the protest babes and brought them directly to the enemy territory of South Korean campuses. The tide does appear to be turning even there, although the excesses of the pro-North Korean Hanchongryon probably have more to do with that than these initial efforts. This is probably just a start. LiNK may have started some people thinking about the issues it’s raising, but they will have to do more like this to seed the barren soil of Korea and start building an activist base there. Many of those LiNK has reached thus far will have to be prodded further before they attend a meeting.

If you want to support those efforts, you can donate here.