This might interest you, Ish: Suicide at WTO Meeting Highlights Farmers' Plight
Fri Sep 12, 8:57 AM ET
Washington, Sep 12 (OneWorld) -- 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 (news - web
sites) (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 (news - web sites)'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 (news - web sites) and the
International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) (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 (news - web sites) (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.
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