Cancun Files: WTO Opens to Tragedy and Protest
Tom Hayden, AlterNet • September 11, 2003

CANCUN, Sept. 10. — A South Korean farmer, Kun Hai Lee, committed ritual suicide during the WTO's opening day to protest the organization's agricultural policies.

Witnesses said Lee stood in front of police lines, declared that "the WTO kills farmers," and then slashed himself to death with a blade. His suicide came on South Korea's Day of the Dead.

Few at the demonstration realized what had occurred until later in the day. As word slowly spread of the suicide, supporters of Kun Hai Lee vowed to protest his martyrdom throughout the coming week, possibly starting with a tent city at the barricades where the death occurred.

The WTO Secretariat issued a one-paragraph statement of "regret" at the death that they described as resulting from a "self-inflicted" wound. Lee's supporters condemned the WTO for the callous description of his death as self-inflicted, which absolved the organization of any responsibility in his death or the fate of thousands of farmers suffering from its policies.

Lee was known for a previous hunger strike outside the WTO Secretariat in Geneva. A decade ago, three South Korean farmers attempted to immolate themselves, and one died, in anti-WTO protests.

Lee's suicide marked the tragic end of a day of loud and sometimes violent protest. Earlier in the day, twenty global justice activists peacefully disrupted today's opening ceremony, sealing their mouths with masking tape to represent the voiceless, but left before they were arrested. Carrying bilingual placards proclaiming "WTO anti-development," "WTO obsolete," and "WTO undemocratic," they visibly ruffled the feathers of the trade organization's director-general, Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand.

Hours later, thousands of campesinos, marching from Cancun's barrio towards the posh hotel zone where the WTO is headquartered, were blocked by a wire-mesh fence and heavily armed police. Immediately, more militant members of direct action affinity groups from the so-called Black Bloc swarmed the fence to unsuccessfully tear it down.

Black Bloc describes itself as a tactic rather than an organization — a loose and changing collection of anarchist groups who come together for a specific action. The militants appeared to include Mexican students, Europeans with black flags, Koreans and a few from the U.S. As they raged against the fence, 25 members of Seattle's Infernal Noise Brigade, dressed in black peasant costumes and armed with painted wooden rifles, played drums and chanted. Chac, the Mayan rain god, blessed the dehydrated throng with a twenty-minute shower.

The protesters threw rocks and water bags and attacked the line of police with sticks and poles. They even hurled themselves against the shielded police phalanx, bouncing back into the crowd, then charging again. They were successful in shaking and bending — but not breaking — the police fence at the intersection of Kukulcan and Bonampak boulevards, placed as a barrier to the hotel zone. As a result, traffic was blocked for several hours across the city. "Why aren't there wire-cutters?" asked one frustrated militant. Several protesters suffered head wounds during the confrontation, but there were no immediate reports of injuries from the police side.

The confrontation, in clear view of the world's media, demonstrated the deep divisions that continue to bedevil the anti-WTO movement.

While a minority believes in storming the barricades physically and symbolically, larger coalitions prefer peaceful confrontations highlighting the grievances of local community-based movements, such as the farmers who belong to Via Campesina. Wednesday's public rift came after a promising late-night meeting between Via Campesina and Black Bloc members. According to Via Campesina leader, Rafael Alegria Moncada, the Black Bloc agreed not to "intervene" at the fence and remain in the rear ranks of the march. In addition, Alegria negotiated a three kilometer extension of the march with the police, allowing the campesinos to enter the hotel zone that was previously off-limits. The Via Campesina wanted to march "on" the convention center itself, but the three kilometer proposal was seen as at least a partial victory.

Both agreements collapsed when Black Bloc groups began attacking the fence. After a three-hour standoff, the Via Campesina contingent pulled back. It was their last scheduled effort to mount a march, and many began boarding buses to return to their villages this evening. About 2,000 remain encamped at the Casa de la Cultura outside the hotel zone.

Alegria was disappointed but philosophical about the day's outcome. He told AlterNet, "Our objectives were not achieved unfortunately. But what can you say, the others were young people, who came to fight, and it does no good to criticize them". He planned to meet with the remaining Via Campesina contingent tonight to explore their options for the remainder of the week.

Other organizers of the week's protests, including members of Public Citizen and Global Exchange, were seething at the disruption of the campesino march. "Who gives them the right to interfere and impose their agenda on indigenous people?" one prominent activist asked. "Was this what the campesinos took a two-day bus trip for?" asked another. Months of planning and thousands of dollars had been invested in the march, designed to show the human face of the Mexican countryside to the media and WTO delegates.

On the one hand, the small group using Black Bloc tactics succeeded in creating a media spectacle questioning the legitimacy of a beseiged WTO hiding behind military protection. On the other hand, the episode divided the movement and diluted any message being sent by the global South.

But it would be a mistake to conclude that the protests are "marginalized," as a recent New York Times editorial suggested. At this point, Cancun 2003 certainly does not compare to Seattle 1999, Washington DC 2000, Prague 2000, Genoa 2001, Quebec 2001, Lazarc (France) 2000, or the anti-war protests of this spring, all events that drew tens of thousands people taking unprecedented mass action. While Cancun is not as isolated as Qatar or the upper Canadian Rockies (where WTO and G-7 meetings have been held in the past), it is difficult terrain for protests, both from a tactical and logistical point of view. Yet as many as 10, 000 indigenous people have streamed in from the Mexican countryside to join global non-governmental organizations in a broadening alliance against the trade agreements that leave them out.

In addition, the impact of the movement gathered here has greater influence than ever before. For example, five years ago, Argentina was a poster-child for corporate globalization before its economic collapse. In response, social movements began blocking roads, taking over factories, besieging banks, and forming popular neighborhood assemblies to reclaim their lives. Unexpectedly, this year they elected a populist president, Nestor Kirchner, who, on the eve of the WTO's conference opening, dropped a bombshell by refusing to pay a $3 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Heeding the social movement, Kirchner refused the IMF's demands that he slash social programs, increase middle class taxes, allow foreign-owned utilities to raise rates, and banks to foreclose on homeowners without savings.

It was a dream come true for the anti-globalization movement — all because of an election that the cynics dismissed as meaningless. The Argentina developments followed on the heels of the election of Lula in Brazil, and other populist victories across Latin America.

In an another victory for the movement, on the day the Cancun conference opened, the European Union's high court ruled that European states can ban genetically-modified foods for health reasons, delivering yet another blow to U.S. chemical companies, agribusiness, and the WTO.

The mass protests against the WTO will continue in Cancun and beyond. But what we are seeing behind today's headlines is the growing strength of global justice ideas, which are moving from the outside margins of protest to the mainstream of public opinion in many countries. A poll of Americans released Wednesday found that a majority believe the Bush administration is overemphasizing military approaches and should stress economic reform and diplomacy.

Paradoxically, the movement could encounter more isolation and division right as it reaches the moment of critical mass, just as the anti-Vietnam and civil rights movements fell apart in the '70s as their message gained acceptance and their leaders were canonized in a new establishment consensus.

It is far too early to predict this next phase of the global justice movement, except to say that it will need an internal review and course-correction if it is to keep up with the history it has helped unleash.

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
TO THE SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16755


Lee Kyung-Hae, Korean Farmer & Advocate, Takes his Own Life

Lee Kyung-hae used a Swiss army knife to stab himself in the chest. His death came during an attempted life-saving surgery at Cancun's General Hospital. He was 56 years old. Mr. Lee had a humble background, as he came from a family who suffered through rural poverty.

After having struggled as a poor farmer for many years, Mr. Lee became involved in activism as an advocate for farmers and eventually became the president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation. In his own words, Mr. Lee described the WTO as a source of "waves that destroyed our lovely rural communities."

Full Story

Earlier Report of Kyung-Hae's Activism

On the 23rd of February 2003 Mr. Lee Kyung-Hae, a farmer President of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation, put up a tent in front of the WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and started a solo protest against the first draft modalities drawn up by Mr. Stuart Harbinson, who is the chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture of the WTO.

From the 20th of March Mr. Lee began a hunger strike expressing his demands on picket boards, which read: "WTO Kills Farmers." "Stop your agricultural negotiations." And "Exclude Agriculture from the WTO."

Complete Article at:
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/newswire/display/419/index.php

THANK YOU to Millenium and GSN for the stories gleaned from the MediosIndependientes.org site


SEPTEMBER 10 COVERAGE:

Cancun Files: The Seattle Beat Goes On
Tom Hayden, AlterNet • September 10, 2003

CANCUN, Sept. 10 — Thousands of campesinos will march on the convention center today when the WTO officially starts its proceedings with a speech by Mexican president Vicente Fox. Anti-WTO protestors may also attempt a creative disruption of the formal ministerial event, which they say is refusing to acknowledge the increasingly harmful impact of WTO regulations on wages and the environment over the decade since the organization was launched.

At least 5,000 campesinos are camped on the grounds of Casa de la Cultura in downtown Cancun. Displaced by cheap corn imported from subsidized U.S. agribusiness, they have traveled with their families on buses from across southeast Mexico. They string their hammocks between trees, cook their meals together, and hold rallies under banners in Spanish that proclaim, "Indigenous People Are the Hope of Humanity." The makeshift rural village includes outdoor stalls hawking Che Guevara t-shirts and a Greenpeace truck mounted with solar electric panels.

The march will cross "Avenida Nader" accompanied by several large puppets ("without strings," they joke), but is expected to be blocked by Mexican federal and local police, in coordination with the FBI, before entering the luxurious First World where WTO delegates meet, stroll, and sunbathe behind well-armed protection.

Today's march is a prelude to larger ones that will be launched Thursday through Saturday, the day when WTO delegates will be under maximum pressure to accept agreements further privatizing Third World economies. Thus, the protest strategy depends on demonstrating broad opposition in the streets to draft trade agreements that many Third World delegates are already reluctant to sign.

On Tuesday, the protest campaign began modestly amidst some confusion, with hundreds of people marching up to the police barricade, where they performed a Mayan ritual before returning to the campsite. The protest was intentionally low-key to avoid mass arrests and detentions.

As always, the protestors gather, study maps, construct puppets and placards, undergo civil disobedience training, and strategize at a "convergence center." The format symbolizes the coming together of the many diverse strands of the struggle, in notable opposition to a centralized hierarchy.

The demands put forward by the protesters combine detailed denunciations of privatization with colorful representations of Mayan deities. A puppet of Caac, the rain god, thunders against the privatization of water. Yum Kaax, the corn goddess, opposes the dumping of cheap corn laced with GMOs. Kukulkan, the god of intellect, rebukes the theft of indigenous culture by corporate patents. Ixchel, the medicine goddess, curses the pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The police, over-reacting to the protests, constructed numerous traffic barriers and checkpoints that tied up traffic all the way to Cancun's international airport. Although the police seem to have been instructed to avoid repressive tactics, the overwhelming police presence in itself could slow or disrupt the passage of delegates to the conference.

One immediate side effect yesterday was to undercut attendance at an international panel for global justice activists sponsored by the San Francisco-based International Forum on Globalization (IFG). Rumors immediately circulated that police were preventing attendees from attending, until it was discovered that the police reaction to the morning's march several kilometers away had temporarily closed the roads. The lack of movement coordination had caused the glitch.

The Forum featured critical analysis from several leading thinkers of the global justice movement. Walden Bello, head of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, spoke of growing internal divisions within the WTO due to the unilateralist policies of the Bush administration. Bello said the U.S. is suffering an economic crisis brought on by over-extension, and is seeking "protectionism for the U.S. and free trade for the rest of the world." He cited the U.S. effort to use the trade process to secure protection for pharmaceutical corporations in the face of popular demand for generic medicines. In addition, Bello noted, the U.S. trade representative is telling countries that they must support American "strategic interests" if they want trade consideration.

Martin Khor of Malaysia, director of the Third World Network, described the unraveling of the so-called Doha development agenda of 18 months ago, and the subsequent disillusionment of Third World countries, which now realize that the U.S. and the EU "don't want to give anything up." Twenty developing countries, including Brazil and China, recently organized to demand that U.S. agribusiness subsidies be phased out, coupled with greater support for small farmers in developing countries.

Lori Wallach, leader of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, released findings that reveal the "devastating" results of nine years of the WTO. Her analysis concluded that:

The Wallach and others advocate a strategy to "shrink" the WTO to a traditional trade agenda while derailing its ambition to become a world governing body for multinational corporations. The insistence of the U.S. and the WTO on imposing a market fundamentalism on developing countries, she notes, is a purely conservative corporate agenda, not a trade strategy. A strategy of "shrinking" the WTO would increase the movement's alliances with developing countries while also lessening the WTO's usefulness to corporations.

At present, however, corporate lobbyists are well-represented in the WTO through low-visibility lobbies like the Council of the Americas, the U.S. Coalition of Services Industries, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Council on International Business. The roster of interlocked companies belonging to at least three of these four lobbying associations includes:

American Express, American International Group, AOL Time-Warner, AT&T, Bell South Int'l, Boeing, Caterpillar, Citibank, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Coca Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Corning, Eastman Kodak, Eli Lilly, Exxon Mobil, FleetBoston, Ford, Halliburton, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Merck, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Pepsi, Pfizer, Procter and Gamble, Raytheon, Shell, UPS, Verizon, and Visa.

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

TO THE SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16752
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Personal Letter From Cancun
from Gloria Osborne

thanks to Women Against War
GSN, and Millenium Twain

I am in Cancun at the World Trade Meetings doing support for my affinity group, translating, working in a street clinic, etc. There are thousands of internationals, campesinos, and students and the objective is to reclaim sacred Mayan land and preserve the biospere and the culture--all things which the WTO seeks to destroy.

We made huge street "puppets" representing Mayan Gods/Goddesses--Ixchel (moon goddess), Hunapan (rain,water God), Kukulchan, etc. They are angry and they want the WTO/FTAA/CAFTA/PPP

out of Central America!! An ecovillage has been constructed where the campesinos are camping with compost toilets, greywater systems, and water catchment systems, and many workshops for all.

The students and the campesinos will be leading the actions with the international community for support. Tomorrow the campesinos plan to march to the conference center where the WTO is being held and surrounded with fences, military-federal-and state police, to do rituals and make offerings for change. If we cannot change them, we can change ourselves and transform the communities we live in, ie reclaim the streets (land).

Thursday there are forums with the Zapatistas all day but I don't know of any actions. Friday is to reclaim the parks and set up examples like model schools of the world we would like to see. (Cancun closed all it's public and private schools this week because of the meetings.)

The press originally wrote us up as violent and troublemakers, they are now calling us global critics or globalproposition lists (for change). So farall has been quiet.

Unfortunately there are MANY logistical reasons why it has been difficult to organize here. First, there are few trained activists heresince it is a tourist town with few actions (WEF in 2001) so planning was very poor and mostly done by internationals in the last several months. Second, the hotel strip that the conference center is located on is an island with a lagoon situated between the hotel strip and the city of Cancun with only 2 entrances/exits, both heavily guarded by the military/police. Third, it 2-3 days travel by bus from most places in Mexico--hot, dusty, bumpy travel without air conditioning.

Thanks to international support, 17 buses of students (42/bus) and about an equal number of campesinos have arrived and are here to help create change and reclaim life, land, and culture. Saturday is the big march and demonstration, which has a permit, and Sunday we will either start cleaning up or doing jail solidarity. The feeling from our legal counsel is that no mass arrests of internationals will be made unless for criminal activities.

However there is a strong push for jail solidarity if there are arrests so that campesinos and indigenous participants will not be held and tortured, translation: no-one leaves until everyone leaves.

Although there are almost as many varied actions and groups represented as the present biosystem, it is still very difficult to predict what may happen here. But being the pagan I am, I really feel the winds of change blowing and the sand shifting. Much love and blessings to all who are helping to make the Rochester Social Forum happen this weekend--

I promise to send tons of magical support from here, Gloria


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