Hello Keith and Harry,
here's what a S.Korean farmer wrote about FT and farmers:
<<Earning money by trade is not the way [small farmers want] to secure
food. My warning goes to all citizens that uncontrolled multinational
corporations and a small number of big WTO members' officials are leading
to an undesirable globalisation of inhumane, environment-distorting,
farmer-killing and undemocratic [policies]. It should be stopped
immediately, otherwise the false logic of neo-liberalism will perish the
diversity of global agriculture and [bring] disaster to all.>>
(full text below)
Is this farmer a "fat cat", Harry ?
How does this compare to the FT myths dished up in the FT, Keith ?
(FreeTrade) (FinancialTimes)
Chris
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1040231,00.html
Cancun Diary
Farmer who got a hearing by kiiling himself at WTO talks had written
article telling of peasants' ruin
The Guardian (London) Friday September 12, 2003
John Vidal and David Munk in Cancun
Lee Kyoung-Hae had written about his plight, but few had read his words.
He had protested about the way he and other peasant farmers were being
bullied out of business, but felt he was being ignored.
Yesterday Lee finally got the World Trade Organisation to focus on the
ruinous policies that have left farmers in his native South Korea on the
brink of disaster, but it took his death - by his own hand - to turn
global attention his way.
His suicide on Wednesday during a farmer's day march shocked everyone
gathered in Cancun for the WTO conference. Lee had been at the head of a
delegation of more than 300 Korean farmers and trade unionists marching
towards the conference centre. The Koreans, disciplined and all wearing
white sleeveless shirts and grey jackets, were chanting "No to WTO".
When the march reached the checkpoint that separates the luxury hotel zone
where the official delegates stay from Cancun town the Koreans tried to
pull the fence down. In the melee, Lee, without telling anyone or making a
speech, pulled out a knife and plunged it into his heart. The cry went up
for a doctor. After about 10 minutes, the crowd parted and he was carried
out by six men.
An insight into what drove Lee to take his own life may be found in an
article he wrote last month for the Korean AgroFood magazine.
"I am 56, a farmer from South Korea who has strived to solve our problems
... but who has mostly failed like many other farm leaders elsewhere," he
said.
"Soon after the Uruguay round of the Gatt (now the WTO) was signed in 1992
[opening Korean markets to rich countries and allowing the dumping of rice
and other foods] we farmers realised that our destinies were out of our
hands. We could do nothing but watch our lovely rural communities being
destroyed. To make myself be brave, I searched for the real reasons for
this."
Lee, a former MP, concluded that WTO policies had led directly to the
impoverishment of hundreds of millions of small farmers worldwide and in
February this year he set up a one-man protest, living in a tent outside
the WTO offices in Geneva with banners reading "WTO Kills".
"I am crying out my words to you that have boiled so long in my body," he
said. "It is a fact that since the WTO agreement, we have never been paid
our production costs. Sometimes prices dropped to a quarter of what they
used to be. How would your emotional reaction be if your salary dropped
suddenly to a half without knowing clearly the reason?"
Many Korean farmers, said Lee, had left for the urban slums. Others had
accumulated huge debts. "Once I ran to a house where a farmer abandoned
his life by drinking a toxic chemical because of his uncontrollable debts.
I could do nothing but listen to the howling of his wife. If you were me,
how would you feel?"
Like many others in poorer countries newly opened to free trade, Lee
rejected the WTO mantra that the world's peasant farmers could trade their
way out of trouble. They were not able to compete with rich-country
subsidies, and needed protection, he said.
"Earning money by trade is not the way [small farmers want] to secure
food. My warning goes to all citizens that uncontrolled multinational
corporations and a small number of big WTO members' officials are leading
to an undesirable globalisation of inhumane, environment-distorting,
farmer-killing and undemocratic [policies]. It should be stopped
immediately, otherwise the false logic of neo-liberalism will perish the
diversity of global agriculture and [bring] disaster to all."
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