Week of Action against WTO and Free Trade: Thousands of Korean peasants mobilise in Seoul
On September 11th 2018, the day of national peasants rally, peasants of Korea gathered in front of National Assembly located in Yeoido, Seoul.
11 September, Tuesday, Seoul: About 5000 peasants from Korean Peasant League(KPL), Korean Women Peasant Association(KWPA), Organic Farmers Korea(OFK), Catholic Farmers’ Movement(CCFM), and Korea Rice Producers Association gathered to urge big change in farming policy of current Korean government before the rice target price is decided for coming 5 years.
While criticizing the current government’s indifferent attitude towards farming sector, they demanded,
- To guarantee 3,000KRW(3USD) per 1kg of rice,
- Withdrawal of “Smart Farm Valley Project”,
- To halt sanction on North Korea and implement peasant exchange between South and North Korea,
- To withdraw cut of agricultural budget.
Before starting their march, the peasants who are also members of La Via Campesina, took out a moment to mark the Global Day of Action against WTO and Free Trade Agreements(FTAs) and remembered the sacrifice of Kyunghae Lee, Korean farmer who took his life outside the WTO Ministerial meeting venue in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, while holding a placard which read “WTO kills Peasants!”
This slogan has since them become the clarion call for the global peasant movement as it has come to mark 10 September as the Global Day of Action Against WTO and Free Trade Agreements.
La Via Campesina has denounced WTO at all the ministerial meetings held ever since through direct actions.
At the Seoul event on Tuesday, the members also screened the recently launched animation video exposing the ill-effects of WTO and FTAs.
https://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL/videos/1932631566775921/