We share in the sadness at the death of Mr. Lee Kyung-hae

Here in Cancun, we came up with a statement that expresses our feelings on the death of Lee Kyung-hae.

We share in the sadness at the death of Mr. Lee Kyung-hae, the former president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation, who took his life in Cancun, Mexico, during protests against the Fifth WTO Ministerial. Lee Kyung-hae ended his own life on a barricade that prevented thousands of campesinos and small farmers from around the world from delivering their message to the WTO negotiators.

For Lee Kyung-hae, this was part of a long struggle. When he held a lone protest outside the WTO Secretariat in Geneva in February, he declared “Reaching to my conclusion now here in Geneva, at the front gate at the WTO, I am crying out the words to you that have been boiling for so long a time in my body: For whom do you negotiate now? For the people or for yourselves?”*

His death in Cancun is a reminder that the negotiations taking place on the other side of the barricades are not simply about texts and technical issues, but involve matters of life and death that impact on the livelihoods of millions of people around the world. Greenpeace joined the march in solidarity with Via Campesina, an organisation with whom we have worked for years promoting sustainable agriculture.

*This quote is from a paper that Mr. Lee was distributing here in Cancun before his death.

Death of an activist

Lee Kyung-hae, a 56-year old Korean farmer, took his life today during a protest against the WTO here in Cancun. He took his life in frustration at being ignored by the WTO.

He had come to the WTO meeting in Cancun as part of a large delegation of Korean farmers who were protesting against the WTO. I was at the campesinos forum to talk to people and get their pictures for this Greenpeace weblog.

I spoke briefly with him - his English was slightly better than my Korean, so the conversation was short. He handed me an article he had written (and had translated) about his hunger strike against the WTO earlier in the year. I photographed him in front of a ceremonial coffin that was to be used in the protest. Two hours after the picture was taken, he was dead.

I was not there when he stabbed himself in the heart at the barricades keeping him and his colleagues away from the WTO meeting. People who were there tell me that it was the barricade, and his frustration at the fact that he and his delegation would not get their message to the WTO, that caused him to decide to take his life.

At first, when I heard of the death, I did not realize that this was the same farmer I had met and spoke with hours before. When I heard the name from Gerard, a campaigner with our delegation, I realized who he was.

I had a rush of different feelings at that point. After sadness, the overwhelming feeling I was left with was that here was a man who, after years of struggle and frustration to be heard, had not become violent and lashed out at others, but had expressed his frustration in a much more personal and ultimately sacrificial way. This gave me a profound sense of the gravity of the issues at stake here in Cancun - that the decisions being made by bureaucratic negotiators have powerful repercussions on real and often desperate people in the real world, not just within the air-conditioned corridors of the Convention Centre or the op-ed pages of the international press.

Benvenidos a Cancun

The banner reads "Welcome visiting friends" from the state government. Welcome to the real Cancun.
(photo from cancun.mediosindependientes.org)

Campesino marchers from this morning

The Via Campesino invited thousands of farmers and indigenous people to come to Cancun and have their voices heard. Thousands did show up from around the world, including a few hundred showed from Korea.

The Korean group put together a traditional coffin with which to stage the "funeral" of the WTO. They have had it on display for two days and marched with it through the streets of Cancun this afternoon, as part of the huge campesinos march against the WTO.

While I was writing this blog entry, we heard that one member of the group had stabbed himself in the chest in protest against the policies of the WTO. That is a pretty strong statement to make. We have yet to find out if he is going to live - it has been reported that he is in critical condition in hospital.

And protests outside

The situation is tense at the fence separating downtown Cancun and the hotel zone, where the meeting is being held.

About 8 kilometres, several fence barricades and thousands of police officers separate the campesinos march from the luxury hotels and conference centre where the meeting is being held.

The march is now stopped at the fence barricades a few kilometres down the road from where it began. We have several delegates participating in the march, remaining peaceful along with the vast majority of the marchers. They have called on cell phones to tell us that some protestors are trying to topple the barricades, while the police stand by.

The situation is very tense. From time to time, people near the fence panic, and run from the fence. From our office near the convention centre we can see truckloads of troops and armoured trucks with water cannons heading toward the barricade, as well as hear the sirens from downtown.

The march began today in downtown Cancun, with a few thousand people from around the world gathered to make their voices heard. The gathering was organized by Via Campesina, a global network of farmers, the landless and indigenous people. Their march was declred to be a peaceful delivery of their demands to the WTO. An important part of their message was the delivery of some maize, an important - in fact sacred - crop in Mexico. The aim was to have the WTO recognize the importance of their crops, their land and their way of life, and the threat posed to it by the WTO-imposed trade rules.

Protests inside...

Non-governmental organizations inside the opening ceremonies of the WTO meeting held a peaceful protest against the undemocratic nature of the organization.

Peaceful protesters from NGOs inside the opening ceremonies of the WTO meeting.

As the Director-General of the WTO, Supachai Panitchpakdi, began his welcoming address, about 30 delegates from NGOs held up signs condemning the undemocratic nature of the World Trade Organization. "WTO undemocratic", "WTO unaccountable" and other messages were displayed in English and Spanish.

The television cameras, trained on Panitchpakdi, quickly refocussed on the peaceful protest. The security staff inside the room didn't do anything, to avoid creating a scene of repression of dissent inside the meeting.

The NGO delegates began to chant "shame!" in English and Spanish. Then they slowly left the room. The security guards did not take away the badges of the delegates, which was a good start.

The first day of the meeting

Today is the first day of the WTO ministerial meeting here in Cancun. It is also the first day we have menacing clouds in the sky, evidence of the hurricane offshore.

Overly dramatic, I suppose, with the pathetic fallacy, but I had to use it because the clouds are so dramatic. And the change in the town from the previous week is also quite dramatic.

For one thing, the police presence is even more intense. We were stopped and asked for our badges three times on the walk to the office, with one cursory search of my bag en route. When we got to the office, we found police with ladders climbing on our roof, and the roofs of neighbouring buildings. President Fox of Mexico is coming in a few hours for the opening of the meeting, so security is tightening.

Many of us are leaving for the opening delegation meeting in a few minutes, which promises to be interesting.

The poverty gap in Cancun

Friends of the Earth organised a tour to take journalists out to see what is going on beyond the boundaries of the rich hotel zone, in which the WTO is taking place. Cancun is one of the areas with the greatest gaps in social and economic status; the poverty level is extremely high, and in this interview Helen talks about what she saw on the tour.