I saw the documentary Seoul Train a few days ago on PBS’ Independent Lens. The film follows a number of North Korean refugees as they attempt to make a new life for themselves and their families in China, Mongolia, and South Korea. The film is particularly critical of China, which has a policy of repatriating the refugees despite having signed a treaty that bars them from such a practice. China considers the North Koreans to be economic immigrants entering the country illegally. In reality, these people have very little food, no basic rights, and are living in a hopelessly desperate situation. The penalty they face for getting caught fleeing North Korea ranges from imprisonment to execution. You can read a summary of the issue on the Refugees International website.

Wanting to help, I spent some time searching for an organization which uses its donations to help the people directly. I’m not really interested in funding additional research, which is what a majority of the organizations I found did. It's the people that need our attention. I’ve always been fascinated by the North Korean dilemma, one of the reasons being the amazingly little amount of coverage the story gets. Aside from multi-party nuclear talks and being mentioned in the “axis of evil,” North Korea for the most part has been off the radar. They have no freedom concerts, no celebrities speaking on their behalf, not even a commercial asking for charity. Everyone knows about Africa, it’s time North Korea got some of the spotlight. There’s no reason this day and age that 3 million people from one small nation should die from famine. Could you imagine dying from hunger?

The cause of the problem is of no surprise. Kim Jong-Il uses his nuclear weapons program as a bargaining tool for international food aid from the US, Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea. Of course, regardless of how more or little aid he is given each year, the nuclear tests go on. Saddam didn’t have any nuclear weapons, but here we are at war with Iraq. Meanwhile Kim has been working at it for years now, yet somehow I don’t feel there’s any sense of urgency to resolve this issue like there was to resolve the one in Iraq. He’s not Castro, we can’t just wait until he dies and hope everything gets better. Action is required.

I don’t want to get into politics here because I dislike it just as much as the next guy, but I do want to help and I’d like to point anyone else who might care about this issue in the right direction. I found two very worthy organizations you can make donations to, and I hope the few people out there reading this can find it in their hearts to offer as much as they can. Please donate generously. I will also be writing a letter to the US ambassador to China Clark T. Randt Jr., which I will post here upon completion.

Liberty in North Korea

Helping Hands Korea