Minister for Trade Kim Hyun-chong who takes part in the WTO Hong Kong ministerial Conference announced that (Korea) is ready to be flexible (for even sensitive sectors including) to make WTO negotiation advanced through the draft of the keynote address at the press briefing in the morning. At the end of some debate this sentence was eliminated from the keynote address.

Although the clause was deleted in the final version of speech after all, we suspect that this reflects the attitude of Korean government regarding this WTO negotiation. As a matter of fact, the past coherent attitude of Korean government towards agriculture supports this suspicion. Korean government has implemented agricultural restructuring policy which forces peasants to give up the agriculture over the last decade. Also it encouraged parliament ratifying the bill for opening up the rice market in the parliament. Numerous peasants committed suicide because they could not maintain their basic livelihood. Peasants’ struggles to stop this situation has been continued. However, Korean government never listened to Korean peasants’ demands. Instead of solving the root causes of the current agricultural problem, Korean government chose to be ignorant. Korean government used the violent measures to repress the recent peasant movement. Last November, two peasants— Jung Yongpum, Oh Chuok— self emulated demanding basic livelihood of peasants. Late Jeon Yongchul passed away by violence of the police and Hong Dukpyo is seriously injured by the violence of the police.

Right now 1500 Korean people protest against WTO negotiation in Hong Kong. The demand is one—stop the negotiation. Yesterday, Korean peasants even jumped into the water near the convention center to address their issues and demands. Can’t Korean officers hear this desperate voice of Korean peasants? What are Korean officers here for? It is deeply disappointing to encounter such a speech of the government officer that Korea can give up the agriculture. This shows that Korean government don’t even consider Korean Peasants as citizen!

It is clear that WTO’s neo-liberalist vision has brought fiasco to the people including workers, peasants, the poor and women in this world. The fact that people’s struggles against the WTO and neo-liberal globalization are getting stronger in global scale confirms it. Korean Struggle Mission came to Hong Kong to stop this fiasco and to protect people’s rights to live. This kind of ’ready for giving up agriculture’ attitude of the Korean government is not merely a problem of Korean peasants. This indicates that Korean government already made up its mind even before the negotiation is started. This is not only the negligence to its one people but also the challenge to the people who protest against WTO. We take this matter very seriously. We are going to watch over the negotiation process. If Korean government continues to behaving in the same matter, we are going to take stronger action here in Hong Kong.

Cf. For more information, email antiwto2005 hotmail.com or antiwto2005 naver.com or media contact Jung Ji Young ? 9579-1915.

Thank you.

Korean Struggle Mission