WTO talks collapse; Korean farmer commits suicide as protest

The big news today is that the developing world finally scored a point in the World Trade Organizaion talks in Cancun, as they formed a 22-nation bloc (including Brazil, China and India) which demanded the wealthier nations address the imbalances in agricultural subsidies. When the us and EU wouldn't give any ground the talks imploded, to the cheers of the many and varied protesters outside. Farmers all around the world, but particularly in the developing world, have been hit hard with plunging, unpredictable food prices and escalating debt. A South Korean farmer stabbed himself at the front lines of the protest and later died in surgery. This is what the farmer said earlier:

Soon after the Uruguay Round (UR) Agreement was settled, we, Korean fellow farmers, and myself realized that our destinies are out of our hands already. Further, so powerlessly of ourselves, we could not do anything but just looking the waves destroy our lovely rural communities that had settle-downed over the hundred years. To make myself brave, I have tried to search the real reasons for and major forces of those waves. Reaching to my conclusion now here in Geneva, at the front gate of the WTO, I am crying out my words to you that have been boiled so long time in my body.

It is true that Korean agricultural reform programs increased the productivity of individual farms. However it is also fact that increased productivity simply added another volume to over-supplied market in which imported goods occupied the lowest price portion. Since then, we never be paid over our production costs. Sometime, price drop recorded four-timers of normal trend in a sudden. How would it be your emotional reaction if your salary drops suddenly to a half without knowing clearly the reason.

One part, those farmers who gave up earlier his farming went to urban slum. The others who had tried to escape from the vicious cycle had to meet bankruptcy with accumulated debts mostly. Of course, some fortunate peoples could come further but not all of them may go longer, I suspect. For me I couldn?t do anything but just looking around this vacant house of old and eroded.

What I could do was to check sometimes his house with hoping him back. Once I run to a house where a farmer abandoned his life by drinking a toxic chemical because of his uncontrollable debts. I also could do nothing but hearing the howling of his wife. If you were me, how would you feel?

If you walk into Korean rural villages, we may firstly see many ruined structures ? mostly livestock shelters and green (mostly glass) houses, which swallowed such big amounts of money. If you get into some houses, you can easily meet old-aged-peoples who suffer from illness in most cases. Rural amenities can be felt, at a glance, only in riding on your car in the road. In fact, good road systems of being paved widely pulls large apartments (a thousand people live in it, usually), buildings and factories in Korea. Those lands paved now mostly were the paddies that constructed for the generations of thousand years and provided the daily lives foods and materials in the past. Now in the contemporary society, the environmental functions of paddies, ecologically and hydrologically are even more crucial. Who shall keep our rural vitality, community traditions, amenities and environment?

Here is a totally unrelated site about Sept. 11 conspiracies, from a generally anti-conspiratorial point of view.

Posted by HongPong at September 15, 2003 11:25 AM
Listed under News .