So all WTO protestors are rich, white people?

[Sava]

Suicide at WTO Meeting Highlights Farmers' Plight


WASHINGTON -- When Lee Kyang Hae scaled a metal security fence and plunged a knife into his heart on the first day of the Fifth Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico, Wednesday, he was trying to speak for tens of millions of small farmers around the world who find themselves at the losing edge of economic globalization.

Lee, a small farmer who had also served in South Korea's legislature, died at a Cancun hospital shortly afterwards, casting a pall over the proceedings for which trade ministers and delegations from more than 140 countries have gathered this week.

Their work may decide the future of agricultural subsidies which many countries, particularly wealthier ones--including South Korea--use to protect domestic farm production against foreign competition.

Just before his suicide, Lee, who staged a one-man hunger strike at WTO headquarters in Geneva earlier this year, distributed a statement to reporters and some of the 15,000 small farmers from dozens of countries who were marching to protest the meeting and the likelihood that decisions taken there may prove ruinous to their livelihoods and way of life.

"My warning goes out to all citizens that human beings are in an endangered situation. That uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of big WTO Members are leading an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately."

Lee's lament goes to the heart of what is perhaps the single most contentious issue in international trade today.

Free-market advocates argue that agricultural producers who can grow crops most efficiently--that is, at the lowest cost--should be permitted to export to other markets without tariffs or other trade-distorting barriers, such as farm subsidies in the importing country, in order to keep global food prices low and as affordable to as many people as possible.

Instead of trying to compete with low-cost producers, according to this view, farmers in other countries who produce the same crop at higher cost should either grow something else at which they will have a similar competitive advantage or give up farming altogether and move to the city where they can get a job in a manufacturing or some other sector whose products or services can be sold to yet other markets at competitive prices.

This "neo-liberal" philosophy, which guides the WTO and other institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that oversee the global economy, is precisely what brought Lee to Cancun and ultimately to his death.

Due to a succession of global trade agreements, the South Korean government was required to take measures that would reduce its ability to insulate its rice farmers, whose production costs have long been quite high by global standards, from the global market. With government protections reduced, the price of rice ceased to be competitive with foreign producers, and even less so as Korean rice farmers recorded five straight years of bumper crops, which further reduced prices.

"Since (massive importing of rice), we small farmers have never been paid over our production costs," Lee wrote. "What would be your emotional reaction if your salary dropped to a half without understanding the reason?"

"Farmers who gave up early have gone to urban slums. Others who have tried to escape from the vicious cycle have met bankruptcy due to accumulated debts," he continued. "For me, I couldn't do anything but just look around at the vacant houses, old and eroding. Once I went 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?" asked Lee, a former president of the Korean National Future Farmers' and Fishermen's Association.

The plight of small farmers described by Lee is by no means confined to South Korea.

Despite their professed devotion to free-trade principles, major economic powers--particularly the European Union (EU) and the United States--have used their influence in the WTO to retain the ability to subsidize their agricultural producers, which they continue to do at the rate of some US$300 billion a year.

These subsidies have enabled the EU and the U.S., in particular, to flood much of the rest of the world with their food exports at prices that are far below the actual costs of production, making it even more difficult for small farmers in poorer countries, including South Korea--which has become the highest per capita consumer of U.S. farm products in the world--to compete.

Similarly, since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which required Mexico to lower tariffs on a range of agricultural goods, corn imports from the U.S. have increased 20-fold, threatening, and, in some cases, destroying, the livelihoods of millions of small farmers, many of whom have migrated to the U.S. in search of work, since work is harder to find in Mexico itself.

Thus it was no surprise that most of the small farmers who marched with Lee Wednesday were from maize-producing regions in Mexico. ''I believe that farmers' situation in many other developing countries is similar," his statement said. "We have in common the problem of dumping, import surges, lack of government budgets (support), and too many people."

In a message to indigenous peoples gathered to protest in Cancun, the leader of Mexico's peasant-based Zapatista Front agreed, saying: "The products we sell are not given a fair price, while their products' prices go up all the time. Everything the poor buy is more and more expensive, and only a few people benefit and live better, while millions of poor men and women and children die of hunger and sickness."

Indian activist Vandana Shiva told the marchers that 650 farmers committed suicide in just one month.

The protests, sombered by Lee's death, will continue through the end of the WTO meeting Sunday.

"General elections could be envisaged as soon as possible, between now and spring 2004," he added.

Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0912-04.htm

I posted this primarily for MtG and all the other people who think only hippy liberal Americans protest globalization.

[Harry Seldon]

When Lee Kyang Hae scaled a metal security fence and plunged a knife into his heart on the first day of the Fifth Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization

[JohnT]

I'm glad that more expensive food is on the agenda of the WTO protestors. It must do their hearts proud.

[Sava]

Originally posted by JohnT
I'm glad that more expensive food is on the agenda of the WTO protestors. It must do their hearts proud.

I'm glad the WTO is poised to destroy the livelihood of millions just to save a few bucks just so corporate farmers can profit.

[JohnT]

I'm glad that the protestors are demanding that the city dwellers in their own countries pay higher prices for food to subsidize their lack of efficiency.

[Harry Seldon]

I'm glad we live in a world where a farmer can jump a metal security fence with a knife and then stab himself to death thinking that a bunch of corporate and political bigwigs would care.

[Sava]

JohnT: How is it a lack of efficiency? Oh please explain this to me, oh dear expert of East Asian farming.

[JohnT]

"... corporate and political bigwigs..."

Make that "anybody."

[Drogue]

JohnT: Its is not that they are inefficient, it is that they do not get the ridiculous subsidies that the US and especially the EU give out to their farmers, combined with the huge external tariffs on imported goods (into the EU) and the fact that the EU 'dumps' (sells at next to nothing) agricultural produce on third world countries. And that the WTO does jack all about it, even though it is illegal.

Moreover, there is a lot to be said for protectionism of emerging markets, as they need to develop to become efficient.

I still find it amazing that in countries that produce tomatoes, such as Guatamala, the tinned tomatoes they get are Italian.

Look at it like this. The EU pays European farmers to be inefficient, and produce far more than is needed, and then the EU dumps it on nations that are developing. All the while having a flat 200% (IIRC) tariff on imports from those nations. And you are sayign it's because that nation is inefficient in producing?

I'm all for globalisation. I want to see us trade with developing nations, without us using tariffs and subsidies which benefit no-one but the European and US farmers. Yes the EU are far worse at it, but the US is not blameless at all either.

[Sava]

well said Drogue...

[chequita guevara]

I'm not to eager to see polluted food flood into the U.S. though. Nasty toxic pesticides and human and animal waste for fertilizers.

[Giant_Squid]

I'm glad that more expensive food is on the agenda of the WTO protestors. It must do their hearts proud.

The Dr. Shiva quoted in the article spoke at my college Sunday, so I'd like to give you the response she gave to someone who raised similar concerns.

You'll note that the article says that "despite their professed devotion to free-trade principles, major economic powers--particularly the European Union (EU) and the United States--have used their influence in the WTO to retain the ability to subsidize their agricultural producers, which they continue to do at the rate of some US$300 billion a year". This means that your tax dollars are going into making our farm prices (which, if you just count production costs, are ought to be the same as everywhere else) artificially low - much lower than, say, those of South Korean farmers. If, God forbid, the South Koreans try to prevent our artificially cheap rice from getting in their borders so that their farmers have a fighting chance, the US throws the WTO book at them. Since South Korea, not being a superpower who can bully everyone else around, can't convince the WTO to let *them* subsidize *their* farmers, the South Korean farmers have no other options than to get another job (maybe leaving farms that have been in their families for generations) or starve (since neither of us, I suspect, knows as much as Mr. lee about the job market in South Korea). This is also why 20,000 Indian farmers have starved to death over the last coupla years. Our tax money at work!

Summary: Don't make fun of people starving to death and committing suicide unless you know the whole story. It's in bad taste.

[Snotty]

So we have farmers losing their jobs because they cannot produce food as cheaply as the outside markets, yet the food for everyone in the country is cheaper, presumably stopping starvation and increasing the quality of live for the rest.

Simply because of the lives saved through people not starving, in this case I would say the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

But then again I could be missing something.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sava
I posted this primarily for MtG and all the other people who think only hippy liberal Americans protest globalization.

There are ignorant leftists everywhere to serve other people's agendas. Hippie gringos wouldn't go to Cancun to protest because the Mexican police would have their sorry asses, and the hippie gringos would rather party anyway.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I'm not to eager to see polluted food flood into the U.S. though. Nasty toxic pesticides and human and animal waste for fertilizers.

Human and animal waste is one of the most natural fertilizers. They have been used for centuries without problem. It is the artificial pesticides, insectacides and fertilizers that cause problems IMHO. Besides, you already import fruit from Latin America and coffee, chocolate and some fresh produce from Africa. Why would some more affect you? I am not sayting you have to change your import regulations. They would still have to pass health and safety tests. All I ask is that you stop subsidising and putting tariffs on the imports from developing countries.

[chequita guevara]

Vandana Shiva and Aruhndata Roy (not mentioned but better than Shiva politicaly) are both Indian women. Both are major leaders of the "anti-globalization" movement. Yet another lie about the left bites the dust.

[Harry Seldon]

"... corporate and political bigwigs..."

Make that "anybody"

I care.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drogue
All I ask is that you stop subsidising and putting tariffs on the imports from developing countries.

All I said is that I was uncomfortable with it. Personally, I'd like it if our environmental regulations applied to imports, but they don't.

[Oerdin]

I remember about four years ago when several school kids here in the states died after eatting Mexican strawberries which had be fertlized with raw sewage. Sewage has lots of bacteria in it.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Snotty
So we have farmers losing their jobs because they cannot produce food as cheaply as the outside markets, yet the food for everyone in the country is cheaper, presumably stopping starvation and increasing the quality of live for the rest.

Simply because of the lives saved through people not starving, in this case I would say the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

But then again I could be missing something.

You are. They can produce food as cheaply, but do not get subsidies, and have EU surplus dumped on them. Food might be cheaper, but the many are farmers. These are predominantly agricultural economies. If the farmers get mroe money, it means that they can invest and spend more, helping the whole economy. Prices would rise, but wages would rise by much much more.

As I said, the farmers are the many. These nations cannot get richer if they cannot export. They cannot develop. Indeed, money is flowing out of these countries.

[Sava]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


There are ignorant leftists everywhere to serve other people's agendas. Hippie gringos wouldn't go to Cancun to protest because the Mexican police would have their sorry asses, and the hippie gringos would rather party anyway.

If it's an issue of agendas, frankly, I'm more scared of the profiteering agendas of omnipotent multinational corporations rather than some poor farmers in Korea.

I'll quote good old Teddy Roosevelt...

“The reactionaries of the business world and their allies and instruments among politicians and newspaper editors demand for themselves an immunity from government control… Many of them are evil men, unable to understand what the public interest really is… Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy…”

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Vandana Shiva and Aruhndata Roy (not mentioned but better than Shiva politicaly) are both Indian women. Both are major leaders of the "anti-globalization" movement. Yet another lie about the left bites the dust.

What lie? It's been pretty well known for a long time that the commie left agenda relating to agriculture (including land redistribution, collectives, protectionism, direct subsidy, etc.) will have the effect (intentionally or otherwise) of keeping lots of small, barely surviving farmers stuck being lots of small, barely surviving farmers in perpetuity.

There is no real long-term economic growth in agriculture at the third-world scale, and clinging to an agricultural economy simply dooms people to being in a permanent underclass. But of course, that can be cured by further state intervention.

[Chemical Ollie]

One less

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Snotty
So we have farmers losing their jobs because they cannot produce food as cheaply as the outside markets, yet the food for everyone in the country is cheaper, presumably stopping starvation and increasing the quality of live for the rest.

. . .

But then again I could be missing something.

Yes, you are missing the fact that when farmers lose their farms, they no longer have an ability to purchace. If theyre lucky, and live someplace with 0% unemployment, they can probably get a job which will compenstate the loss of land and income. If they live in the 3rd world, then they may very well starve.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Sava
If it's an issue of agendas, frankly, I'm more scared of the profiteering agendas of omnipotent multinational corporations rather than some poor farmers in Korea.

I'm the other way. I care more about what our governments are doing than these companies. These MNCs are providing employment to millions in the developing world. However our governments are stopping these nations from progressing, with their anti-competetive practices. The WTO needs to stop it now. WTF does the US still have farm subsidies? I know the EU only has it because of the French veto, but why the US? Both need to go.

Thanks for posting this too Sava a very important issue IMHO. Not for this Korean, but for the massive problem it represents. Millions die every year because of this, and we are stopping the entire agricultural nations of the developing world from developing.

[GePap]

The only way to know that US and EU farners can produce with lower cost s to end their subsidies and let them compete...Oh lord, but we can;t have that, can we!?

Subsidies and tariffs by the rch states on the poor is the greatest hypocrasy in the world economy today.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
What lie? It's been pretty well known for a long time that the commie left agenda relating to agriculture (including land redistribution, collectives, protectionism, direct subsidy, etc.) will have the effect (intentionally or otherwise) of keeping lots of small, barely surviving farmers stuck being lots of small, barely surviving farmers in perpetuity.

Better that than starving to death in a shanty town, which is where all those displaced farmers end up.

[Sava]

There is no real long-term economic growth in agriculture at the third-world scale, and clinging to an agricultural economy simply dooms people to being in a permanent underclass.

Yes, we should force them to work for less pay and more brutal working conditions in corporate factories producing Nike's for 5 cents a pair when they are resold for $150 a pair in the US.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Yes, you are missing the fact that when farmers lose their farms, they no longer have an ability to purchace. If theyre lucky, and live someplace with 0%, they can probably get a job which will compenstate the loss of land and income. If they live in the 3rd world, then they may very well starve.

And if both third world domestic politics and the focus of globalization was directed towards achieving a managed transition out of an agriculture dominated economy, then you wouldn't have the displacements that occur anyway in the third world when natural disasters, market crashes, new pests, erosion, or soil exhaustion occur.

Small scale third world agriculture is a multi-generation life sentence to poverty.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
What lie? It's been pretty well known for a long time that the commie left agenda relating to agriculture (including land redistribution, collectives, protectionism, direct subsidy, etc.) will have the effect (intentionally or otherwise) of keeping lots of small, barely surviving farmers stuck being lots of small, barely surviving farmers in perpetuity.
That is true.

There is no real long-term economic growth in agriculture at the third-world scale, and clinging to an agricultural economy simply dooms people to being in a permanent underclass. But of course, that can be cured by further state intervention.

All false. There is long term growth in agriculture, espcially for the third world. There are more mouths to feed, and without state intervention, the first world agriculture would be dying (it is anyway, but slowly). That means more agriculture needs to come from the third world. There is huge growth there, however without investment, and without intermediate technology and a market to export to (most importantly), it cannot grow. Agricultural produce is unstable, due to the nature of being a natural product, however there is much more money in it for the third world, as long as we stop our state intervention. Remove the agricultural subsides and the free market will make developing nations wealthier. Allow them a small measure of unreplied protectionism, until they have developed a little further, and they will develop much quicker. However since that isn't good for the US and EU in the short-term, it is not politically viable. That is the problem.