WTO focuses on farm subsidies

CANCUN, Mexico -- Negotiators from 146 countries sat down to thorny trade talks yesterday, with rich and poor nations pushing conflicting agendas on agricultural reform and leaders cautioning that their decisions could mean life or death for millions of people.

Thousands of poor farmers, worried that more trade will drive them out of business, clashed with riot police as they tried to storm past barricades blocking the site of the World Trade Organization meeting. Hours later they dispersed, vowing to try again.


		The AP
	Mexican riot police battle demonstrators trying to get into the 146-nation World Trade Organization meeting that began in Cancun yesterday.

Leaders at the opening WTO session made clear they will try to level the playing field on farm trade by persuading rich nations to make deep cuts in the nearly $1 billion a day they pay their farmers.

Those subsidies help U.S. and European farms stay profitable, but make it hard for poor farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America to compete in a globalized market.

"The eyes of the world are on this conference, and people will judge us by the choices we make," WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told delegates as the meeting opened.

The biggest opponents to major subsidy cuts -- the United States, European nations and Japan -- wield tremendous weight in the 146-country organization, largely because their markets constitute the bulk of the global economy.

The United States and Europe agreed last month on a proposal for moderate cuts in subsidies and tariffs, but developing nations say the champions of free trade need to go further. A group of 21 developing nations have banded together to pressure rich nations for deeper agricultural reforms.

"No longer can we allow ourselves prosperity restricted to a few nations," Mexican President Vicente Fox said at the opening ceremony.

Dozens of activists chanted "Shame!" from the back of the hall, holding up signs calling the WTO obsolete and undemocratic and nearly drowning out a speech by Mexico's foreign minister.

Thousands more protesters massed nearby. The group was made up largely of farmers demanding that agricultural protections be kept in place.

"This is a battle of the rich against the poor," said Leon Crump, a vegetable farmer from South Carolina. "And no one is poorer in the United States than farmers."

Protesters and riot police battled for hours along a chain-link fence separating the city from the peninsula that houses beach resorts and the city's famous all-you-can-drink watering holes, as well as the hall where WTO delegates are meeting.

Protesters pushed down the fence, prompting hundreds of police to try to drive them away with tear gas and nightsticks. Activists fought back with chunks of concrete, bottles and burning banners.

A South Korean farmer climbed atop a fence and stabbed himself in the chest with a knife in what friends called a ceremonial act. Kung Hae Lee was undergoing surgery for an "extremely serious" wound, said Dr. Aurelio Espinosa at Cancun's General Hospital.

"He believes if the negotiations go through at the WTO, it will be the death of the Korean farmer," said colleague Jung Kwang Hoon of the Korean People's Solidarity movement.

Protesters have been a force at every major WTO meeting since 1999, when street riots disrupted talks in Seattle. Activists, who include farmers, union leaders and students, argue that free-trade rules benefit big business at the expense of the poor and the environment.

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