S. Korean protesters oppose free trade accord with US
SEOGWIPO (South Korea), Oct 22: South Koreans took to the streets on Sunday against a proposed free-trade agreement with the United States, a day before the start of a new round of negotiations that have made few breakthroughs and face a looming deadline.
On the resort island of Jeju, where the talks were set to start on Monday, farmers called for the deal to be scrapped. In Seoul, the capital, about 2,000 people blasted the free trade proposal as well as Washington’s North Korea policy.
Washington and Seoul have held three rounds of trade talks since June aimed at forging an accord to lower tariffs and open markets that would be the biggest for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.
The two sides have set a goal of reaching a basic agreement by the end of this year to submit to their respective legislatures. The first three rounds made slow progress, hung up on issues such as market access and South Korean goods made in North Korea.
The negotiations are scheduled to last through on Friday in Seogwipo, a city at the southern tip of Jeju, a mountainous island of beaches, golf courses and tangerine groves often called South Korea’s Hawaii.
Jeju is about 100 kilometres south of the mainland, and about an hour’s flight from Seoul.
About 50 protesters, mostly farmers and their supporters, chanted peacefully against the free-trade deal in the lobby of Jeju airport on the island’s northern end, as more than 100 riot police in tight formation stood nearby.
The protesters wore red and white headbands printed with slogans in Korean against the agreement. One protester wore a T-shirt printed with “No! FTA” in English.
Demonstrators in Seoul gathered in larger numbers, with one lawmaker accusing Washington of fomenting armed conflict on the divided Korean Peninsula by pressuring North Korea over the communist country’s claim to have tested a nuclear weapon this month.
“The US wants a war,” Roh Hoe-chan, a member of the opposition Democratic Labour Party, told a crowd of about 800 people near the US Embassy.
Washington pushed the United Nations to impose tough sanctions against Pyongyang, including searching North Korean ships and cargo, after it announced the underground nuclear test blast on Oct 9.
In a separate rally, 1,300 anti-US activists also rallied against the free-trade talks and Washington’s policy toward the North.
‘No resolution of nuclear issue unless the US withdraws hostile policy” toward North Korea, read one placard at the rally, which blocked six lanes of traffic.
Some 7,000 police were mobilized. No clashes were reported.
The free-trade talks kicked off in Washington in June amid much fanfare, with the two governments touting it as a “win-win”deal which would open markets and boost economic growth.
A second round in Seoul in July, met by large street protests, broke off early amid bickering over US access to South Korea’s pharmaceutical market. The third round was in the US West coast city of Seattle last month.
Washington wants more access for US pharmaceuticals, automobiles, farm products and other goods, while Seoul wants South Korean products manufactured in North Korea to be subject to the agreement. The US has said it can’t accept that.
South Korean rice and beef farmers, in particular, have vehemently opposed a deal, saying cheaper US products would jeopardize their livelihoods.
The clock is ticking for the US because President George W. Bush’s legal authority to “fast track” a deal expires in mid-2007.
Fast-tracking allows US envoys to negotiate an agreement that can be submitted to Congress for a yes-or-no vote without amendments.
Assistant US Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, the chief US negotiator, said in Seattle that Washington remains committed to reaching an accord by the end of this year.
Security on Jeju was tight, with the island’s police force of 2,000 officers beefed up with 10,000 reinforcements from the mainland, according to Kim Chul-soo, a Jeju police official.
Police expect up to 20,000 protesters, including 5,000 from Seoul, to hold rallies, Kim said.
Protesters and police signed an agreement on Wednesday in which demonstrators agreed not to hold violent protests, Kim said. In return, police agreed to allow the rallies to come as close as 500 meters to the swank hotel venue for the talks.—AP
