Korean farmers hold silent vigil after act of martyrdom

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN at the WTO

South Korean farmers marched down to the tall chain-link barricades that wall off the World Trade Organisation summit last night to begin a silent vigil.

Earlier in the day Cancun had claimed its first WTO martyr.

Lee Kyung-Hae had climbed up a fence and, in what friends described as a ceremonial act, stabbed himself in the chest with a knife in the midst of violent protests against the WTO.

The 55-year South Korean farmer, who had made a similar attempt in 1993, had recently spent two months protesting at the WTO's Geneva headquarters.

Mr Lee committed suicide after seeing how the WTO was killing peasants around the world, South Korean farmers said after he died later in Cancun hospital.

Korean Trade Minister Hwang Doo-yun, in a sympathy message issued last night, pleaded with the Korean farmers to wait for the results of the conference with patience and composure.

But by 1am it had turned tense.

"We just want to maintain an overnight vigil," activist Jessica Pupovac told the Herald in a late-night phone call. "There's no one here but us ... please get the journalists down."

The activist was frightened the Koreans might clash anew with nearby Mexican troops.

"The Koreans are spending the night here because the Mexican Government has threatened to deport them in the morning."

It had been a day of bloody protest, teargas and riot police in the Caribbean seaside resort, which is more at home to sunbathers than baton-waving police.

The day had started inauspiciously at the official opening of the WTO's mid-term ministerial meeting. Delegates from 146 nations had come to Cancun to try to break a deadlock in negotiations on the Doha Round so developing nations could finally get their free trade dividend.

WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi set a high ambition, challenging delegates to deliver on the hopes of people around the world for a bright future.

But as Supachai spoke a dozen NGO-accredited activists filed silently into the auditorium holding aloft small paper placards: "WTO - Undemocratic, WTO Obsolete".

Chanting, "Verquenza, Shame! Verquenza, Shame!" they drowned out a subsequent speaker before halting to talk to journalists.

"We have a responsibility to make sure the WTO hears the voices from the other side of the barricades," said long-time Canadian anti-globalisation leader Maude Barlow.

US Trade Representative Bob Zoellick was conciliatory. "We want to eliminate export subsidies and we are willing to cut domestic supports and subsidies and tariffs dramatically - if others join us."

Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton, speaking at the tail end of a long list of trade ministers, offered New Zealand flexibility.

"We are ready to be pragmatic and look for solutions."

* MFAT, Fonterra and the NZ Trade Liberalisation Network are contributing to Fran O'Sullivan's trip to Cancun.