… live on CNN, via longtime correspondent Mike Chinoy, who says the main group of protestors are South Korean farmers afraid that WTO agreements will endanger their livelihoods.
Seattle redux?*
[P]rotesters have clashed with police outside Hong Kong’s convention center where World Trade Organization talks were taking place.
The violent demonstrations on Saturday, the worst seen in Hong Kong for decades, were later quelled by police who sealed off the area. But protesters were refusing to disperse.
Protest organizers say they may cancel anti-WTO demonstrations planned for Sunday because of the violence, The Associated Press reported.
Hong Kong Police Commissioner Dick Lee said about 40 people were injured in the demonstration, including five police, AP reported.
Earlier, police used tear gas, fire hoses and pepper spray in attempts to quell demonstrations as the protesters tried to edge closer to the building where negotiations are taking place. […]
Many South Korean farmers are desperate to have their view against globalization and imports heard at the WTO.
They are opposed lower trade barriers for agricultural imports, which they claim would flood the South Korean market with cheap rice and force many of the country’s farmers out of business. It is a view shared by many anti-globalization groups in other countries.
Full story at CNN — with a LINK TO VIDEO (“Police clash with anti-globalization protesters (1:47)”)
Update [2005-12-17 14:37:31 by susanhu]: Mike Chinoy is reporting again. The protestors are being led peacefeully away as they’re arrested. The protestors wish to be “arrested with dignity.”
Below the fold, more about the WTO meeting:
Hong Kong has drawn criticism for holding the talks at the center, a building that is easily accessible, and also for establishing a protest area with a clear line that can be breached.
Inside the building, only limited progress was being made. A draft agreement touching on a variety of issues was released Saturday, but no final agreement had been reached as of Saturday night. (WTO: No firm date for farm rules)
Among other issues, the draft attempts to reach a compromise on a timeline for eliminating agricultural export subsidies in richer countries — an issue that has caused a rift between the United States and the European Union during the talks.
*P.S. Since I lived in Seattle during the WTO clashes, I can tell you that a lot of what the press reported was baloney. A long story.
world. I’ve watched a tv commentator comment on an event that was shown on tv prior to the comment and I’m thinking – “that isn’t right!” But when the press world gets shrunk to faxes sent to the reporter rather than having a number of reporters review an event then things are really bad.
A couple incidents from Seattle:
What does that tell you?
3) Before the event, KOMO (ABC) TV in Seattle announced in an editorial commentary by its president that it would refuse to cover any of the protests.
That man received a few letters from me, to which he replied … wish I still had them. It was classic Orwellian BS.
They don’t want to cover the protests, let alone the issues, only thee thrill of violence, which then is emotively attached to anyone “anti-” or “protesting.”
Inter Press Service has a good series of articles about the issues at stake.
The “claims” & “views” cited in the cnn story don’t go very far to explain the life & death struggle this is for the poor & developing nations.
In case you have not seen this story . . .
The “arrests with dignity” are occurring with water cannons and mace. And are as dignified as TV cameras and reporters can keep them. I doubt the prisoners will receive any more dignified treatment than Americans who were arrested in Seattle and Miami in similar WTO protests received.
I went down to the vigil for the prisoners in Seattle .. others I know well were there a lot more.
Another fact about Seattle/WTO that never gets mentioned: Because of the insane security precautions, it was extremely difficult for ordinary people to get to work.
I usually took the bus to the Eastside where I designed Web sites — I got a free bus pass, and it was nuts to try to drive every day. But, when I came home one afternoon that week, the bus driver dumped us off south of the old Kingdome … with not a single other bus to take us northward to our neighborhoods. I was MILES from home.
And a lot of minimum wage workers had no way to catch the bus because all the bus routes are set up to go through downtown, and all of those were suspended.
It was nuts.
My daughter brought me some of the rubber bullets that had been shot at the protestors … very painful too, many said.
I hope the farmers get out of Hong Kong okay. They’re braver than most of us would be. But they also sound desperate.