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Activists
protest U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement
South Korean
riot police storm peaceful press conference
By Brian Becker, Seoul
The author is the National Coordinator of the
ANSWER Coalition (Act Not to Stop War and End Racism - http://www.answercoalition.org/).
He filed this report from outside the site of the U.S.-Korea FTA
negotiations in Seoul, South Korea.
 On
July 10, nearly 600 helmet-clad riot police repeatedly stormed the site
of an outdoor press conference called by the Korean labor movement in
opposition to the proposed U.S.-Korean Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Representatives from the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Coalition and the
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition were present as the riot police stormed the area
in front of the flatbed truck that was being used as a stage for the
well-attended press conference.
Scuffles broke out between riot police and
activists who were
steadfastly trying to maintain the stage and press conference area.
When the riot police pulled in a huge tow truck to remove the stage
that had been set up earlier in the morning, a number of workers, who
were protesting their status as “irregular workers”—workers who have
lost their health care and other job benefits—laid down in front of the
wheels of the flatbed truck to prevent its removal. “Irregular workers”
are known commonly in the United States as “temps.”
 Ultimately,
the police stormed the stage on the flatbed truck, roughing up and then
arresting four organizers including a leader of the Korean Congress of
Trade Unions (KCTU) and a steering committee member of the KORUS FTA
(the umbrella group opposing the FTA in Korea). The KCTU leader was
hospitalized as a result of his injuries.
At the request of the Korean movement, I attempted
to take a message
of opposition toward the site of the negotiations. Walking with a small
group of other activists from the Korean anti-FTA movement, we were
surrounded by scores of riot police and forcibly removed from the site
of the negotiations.
Today's press conference was the kick-off of what
will be several
days of protests. The fact that the South Korean government sent five
hundred riot police to storm a peaceful press conference of 50
activists was a clear sign that it fears the widening opposition to the
proposed agreement by a growing number of Korean workers and farmers.
It was also a “good faith” sign to the Bush administration by the
Korean government, which is under pressure to sign an agreement that
not only sacrifices the interests of Korean workers and farmers to U.S.
transnationals, but also lays bare the essential neo-colonial character
of U.S.-South Korean relations.
Say no to neoliberal globalization
‘Down with the U.S.-South Korea
FTA!’
Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the
ANSWER Coalition (http://www.answercoalition.org/),
delivered the following statement at a July 10 press conference in
Seoul, South Korea.
 We are here to express our
opposition to the proposed U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.
The events of the past days show that the
governments of both
countries cannot be trusted. The negotiations take place behind closed
doors and when the people come out to be heard, to have a simple press
conference, they are confronted by hundreds of riot police who
overwhelm the action with brute force. Don't pretend this is democracy.
We must ask this question: if the FTA is so good
for the working
people and farmers of Korea, if it is a treaty based on equality and
not an expression of economic colonialism, why is the Korean government
trying to suppress the right of its own people to freely express their
viewpoint? This violation of free speech rights may be appreciated by
the U.S. government and U.S. agribusiness corporations as they fast
track FTA's implementation, but it is proof that the FTA is actually
harmful to the Korean people.
Americans workers will also suffer from the FTA,
just as they lost
rights and jobs under NAFTA. The United States has witnessed tremendous
job losses under NAFTA.
Meanwhile, farmers in Mexico were wiped out by the
dumping of U.S.
corn and other U.S. agricultural products into their country’s economy.
Faced with literal starvation, 8 to 10 million Mexicans have immigrated
to the United States where they are super-exploited and treated as
criminals. They are subjected to mass arrests and deportations if they
dare organize unions. U.S. corporations moved into Mexico, sold
products at very low prices, forced Mexican farmers and industries into
bankruptcy because they could not sell their products, and then turned
around and raised prices after the Mexican “competition” was destroyed.
The Korean people cannot truly desire this outcome since it benefits
only U.S. transnational corporations and banks.
The Korean government seems to assert that the
Korean situation is
different from that of NAFTA countries and it is ignoring the lessons
of NAFTA.
 We,
however, believe that the on-going FTA is on exactly the same track
with the NAFTA. Perhaps it will be even more destructive. Can anyone
imagine a sovereign government agreeing before the opening of
negotiations that it will end programs to help low income and elderly
sick people receive low cost medicines? Yet, in the face of pressure
from the U.S. government, representing the interests of large
pharmaceutical companies, this is precisely what the Korean government
did. That is shameful.
No one should listen to the U.S. government when
it comes to health
care policy since 46 million Americans cannot go to the doctor when
they are sick because they are workers who have no health care
insurance. Forty six million is three million more than when Bush took
office in 2001. It is also larger than the entire population of South
Korea. The U.S. has a government of the rich, by the rich and for the
rich. We urge you to reject their economic model.
The United States has a $12 trillion economy, the
largest in the
history of the world. Yet workers are losing their jobs, their health
care benefits and their pensions. Poverty is growing rapidly and the
U.S. now has more than 2.1 million people in prison—the highest rate in
the world. Just imagine how destructive this “corporation first” model
will be for the Korean people if the U.S. imposes the FTA—a new form of
economic colonialism.
We, in the ANSWER Coalition and all those in the
U.S. peace movement
and the U.S. labor movement, are here to show solidarity with Korean
people. Organizing a truly global workers solidarity movement is the
only hope, the only real solution to the government and corporate plan
to have us compete with each other in a race to the bottom. In unity
there is strength and in unity we can fight back and win!
Down with the KorUS FTA and Neoliberal
globalization!
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