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from 28 september 2003 blue vol II, #98 |
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The WTO at Cancun - a news round-up 
from Peoples Global Action / CrossBorder Updater 
1. "The WTO Kills Farmers:" In Memory of Lee Kyung HaeColumn by Laura Carlsen September 11, 2003 Vol. 1, No. 13 CROSSBORDER UPDATER On September 10, opening day of the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization, Lee Kyung Hae climbed the fence that separates the excluded from the included and took his life with a knife to the heart. Lee, leader of the Korean Federation of Advanced Farmers Association, had been excluded for most of his professional life. A farmer working with farmers, he watched as hundreds of his neighbors were driven off their lands and separated from the only livelihood they knew. He spoke eloquently and passionately of the death of hope in the Korean countryside, the sense of impotence and the anger against policies that promoted imports over national production. So Lee decided to fight that exclusion by going straight to its source. Earlier this year, he staged a one-man hunger strike in front of WTO headquarters in Geneva, in protest of the draft proposals for the Cancun meeting. He was ignored. Seven months later, he joined the march of over 15,000 farmers, indigenous people, and youth in Cancun wearing a sandwich board that read "The WTO Kills Farmers" and holding a firm conviction in his still-beating heart. When the protesters reached the point where they could go no farther, he plunged a knife into his heart and was soon pronounced dead in a Cancun hospital just miles from where WTO Ministers deliberated on how to promote the same agricultural trade that drove Lee, and hundreds more farmers in Korea, India, and other developing countries, to such a drastic end. But it is a more fitting tribute to let Lee tell his own story, from a statement he distributed in Geneva and later minutes before his death in Cancun: I am 56 years old, a farmer from South Korea who has strived to solve our problems with the great hope in the ways to organize farmers' unions. But I have mostly failed, as many other farm leaders elsewhere have failed. Soon after the Uruguay Round Agreement was sealed, we Korean farmers realized that our destinies are no longer in our own hands. We cannot seem to do anything to stop the waves that have destroyed our communities where we have been settled for hundreds of years. To make myself brave, I have tried to find the real reason and the force behind those waves. And I reached the conclusion, here in front of the gates of the WTO. I am crying out my words to you, that have for so long boiled in my body:
2. Activist Packet for WTO Meetings in Cancun http://www.americaspolicy.org/wto/index.html "While multilateral trade rules are necessary to assure predictability, resolve disputes, and eliminate technical barriers, free trade is an ideology whose merits have not been proven in practice. The NAFTA experience and that of developing countries in Asia and throughout the Americas have demonstrated that for much of the poor population, trade and investment liberalization do not lead to fulfillment of development goals. These policies have led to serious environmental, economic, and social problems in developing countries, and among workers and small farmers in developed countries, while the big winners have been transnational corporations. Many of the WTO's rules and functions should be reviewed and revised, to reflect the overall goal of development and poverty alleviation rather than trade liberalization as a goal in itself." - Tom Barry (Policy Director of IRC - www.irc-online.org) and Laura Carlsen (Program Director for the Americas Program - www.americaspolicy.org) 3. Viability and Credibility of World Trade Organization at Risk: New WTO Agenda Necessary By IRC Staff Trade can and must be part of a global economy that creates prosperity and alleviates poverty. But the current WTO trade regime, bound to the dictates of wholesale economic liberalization, has converted trade and investment into instruments of impoverishment and corporate market domination. It's time that citizens and concerned governments turn around the failed trade agenda of the World Trade Organization. online at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/wto/2003/0309statement.html 4. Agreement on Agriculture and Food Sovereignty: Perspectives from Mesoamerica and Asia By Arze Glipo, Laura Carlsen, Azra Talat Sayeed, Jayson Cainglet and Rita Schwentesius Steeped in the rhetoric of free trade that promised expanded agricultural trade and growth for developing countries, the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) took effect in 1995 under the World Trade Organization. Since then, AoA measures to liberalize trade in agriculture have had a tremendous negative impact on agriculture and the livelihoods of poor peasants in the South. online at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/wto/2003/0309aoa.html 5. The TRIPS Agreement: Issues for Cancun and Beyond By Carlos M. Correa The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has far-reaching implications, particularly with respect to developing countries. It has been one of the most controversial components of the WTO system. Strong disagreements on the scope and content of the Agreement emerged during the Uruguay Round negotiations. The developed countries (particularly the USA) insisted upon the negotiation and adoption of standards on intellectual property rights (IPRs) based on the argument that strengthened protection of IPRs would promote innovation as well foreign direct investment (FDI) and technology transfer to developing countries. However, most developing countries seem to remain unconvinced about the benefits that they will obtain from the implementation of the new IPR standards. online at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/wto/2003/0309trips.html 6. Mobilization against Neoliberalism in Cancun Messages from the EZLN: Words of Comandante David for the mobilization of Via Campesina: We send you all greetings from the men, women, children, and old people of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Faced with the money-powerful who now are meeting to come to agreements on how to finish us off, how to humiliate us, how to make us disappear, the Zapatistas raise autonomy and resistance as arms and shields for humanity, and against neoliberalism. Because we, the indigenous peoples of all parts of Mexico, of Latin America, and of the continent have always suffered all kinds of injustices…. online at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/wto/2003/0309zapatista.html 7. Activists' Calendar for Alternative Events at the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico The calendar covers the entire week of alternative events, with links to the sponsoring organizations for more information. It is divided into "inside" and "outside" the security perimeter imposed by the Mexican government, to indicate which events require accreditation. Whether you're making the trip or not, check out what's happening! online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/activists/calendar/2003wto.html For related analysis, also see: Challenging Trade Liberalization in the Americas By Kristin Sampson online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/citizen-action/series/08-trade.html Los Springbreakers del Libre Comercio por Luis Hernández online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/sp_0308springbreakers.html The Mexican Farmers' Movement: Exposing the Myths of Free Trade by Laura Carlsen online at http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/0302farm.html SUBSCRIBE! - The crossborder UPDATER is a weekly bulletin announcing new reports, commentaries, and analysis from the Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC). For a free subscription, send a blank email to americas-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. 8. Anarchist report on Cancun A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E Some activists from Warsaw are participating in actions in Cancun against the WTO. Yesterday, a farmers activist, Lee Kyung Hae, committed suicide at a demo to protest the WTO's impact on farmers around the world. This act was tragic and shocking and it's not clear what effect it will have on the rest of the meetings. Mr. Lee has been active in the farmer's movement for a long time and dedicated his life to it. He took part in other international actions earlier this year, travelling to Switzerland and declaring a hunger strike. At this action in Cancun, he had made a protest at the WalMart, handing out leaflets to shoppers and trying to draw attention to the plight of farmers around the world. Right before he stabbed himself in the heart, he had climbed up the security fence by the conference center but did not manage to go in. Apparently there are rumours that the whole Korean delegation at the WTO might walk out today. Campesinos and others managed to get to the convention center yesterday despite tremendous police pressure and a crowd of only around 10,000 people. The center is in the hotel zone which is separated from downtown Cancun and we were not convinced people would be able to get into the zone. There were security fences there and the crowd got to the fences. Some individuals managed to get over the fences but apparently people were getting hit in the back of the head by bricks and stones. There was some talk about who was throwing the stones. No doubt the police want people to believe it was the black block, although there was only a small black block and it turned out they were not in the area at the time. The campesinos feel that this was done by provocateurs, maybe hooligans paid by police or even undercover cops and they are not blaming any other protestors for these stones, but it was the reason they had to retreat because they were getting injured. Many different forums are being held, many by liberal and leftist NGOs. Anarchists, many who are camping in places like public parks and the baseball stadium, organized themselves into brigades today to go around the city with leaflets and talk to people. They seemed to be very concerned about the negative opinions written about them in the media and were talking about ways to counter them. There were talks about going around and cleaning the city, keeping the campsites clean and in general getting contact with the people. Some actions are planned for upcoming days. There has been some improvisation as to the organization of actions and, in general like in all such big actions, the flow of information is not always too good so it's not always possible to find out what's happening unless you walk all around the city and ask dozens of people what's going on. At the convergence center you can find info but mostly about the big liberal and leftist events. Despite this, the anarchists are determined to have positive contact with locals and are a definite presence. On last comment would have to be on the policy Indymedia has adopted on wanting to photograph and ID people and make up press badges for people before allowing them into the Indymedia Center, ostensibly for security reasons. We haven't been able to find people who can explain the rationale behind that, except that it's for "security" and we got some strange looks that we can't understand this policy. In any case, it gives us the creeps, so we're keeping away from the place. http://ainfos.ca/ 9. European Disobbedienti in Cancun - Official Communication Tens of thousands of people marched to the red zone in an enormous demonstration on Via Campesina. The participation of the indiginous farmers coming from different Mexican states and other countries in Latin America and the rest of the world, dispite the visa limitations imposed by the Mexican police in the days leading up to the summit, was a remarkable element. Today's appointment was in fact one of the most awaited because the it assumed the fundamental character of physically putting the bodies of the demonstrators into a radical and conflictual protest by those who are directly effected by the discisions being made inside the Congressional Center of the hotel zone: the liberalization of commerce and the privitization of the genes of seeds. 4 years after Seattle and after the impregnable red zone of Genoa, todat the determination of the campesinos broke through the metal barrier that difines the limits of the prohibited zone. Due to the efforts of the campesinos, the entire demonstration, us included, united without hesitation. Just yesterday, Via Campesina officially recieved words of solidarity from the EZLN: it invited, in particular the peasant farmers and women, to build global resistance to defend autonomy and rights, to rebel against every red zone, those of summits and those that exclude and kill every day. Today the zapatista words significantly passed through every aspect of the march: from the metropolis in global north, to the campeneros of all the south. During this extremely important day of global mobilization a dramatic episode took place: an activist and a Korean labor organizer took their lives, as a gesture of extreme protest. From this episode we feel we must reiterate that our presence here and in particular on this day is marked by the affirmation of life and the opposition to these processes of privitization and social welfare the the Wto wants to impose. We therefore express our extreme pain to this form of protest. European Disobbedienti in Cancun |
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