Korean bishops warn against US FTA
Catholic News (Australia)
11 July 2006
Korean bishops warn against US FTA
In a message for the Church’s Farmers’ Sunday this week, Korean bishops and farmers have warned against the destruction of the local farming sector as a result of a Free Trade Agreement with the US.
Bishop Boniface Choi Ki-san of Incheon, president of the Korean Catholic bishops’ Committee for Justice and Peace, says in his message that the country desperately needs to make adjustments to ensure "a globalisation without marginalisation", according to a UCA News report. The phrase comes from Pope John Paul II’s message for the 1998 World Day of Peace.
Bishop Choi, who issued his message on 30 June, also urges the government to examine sincerely whether its policies respect farmers’ rights. The government has invested lots of money to revive the agricultural sector but it has not shown its will to radically solve the difficulties farmers face, he says.
The bishop asserts that "globalisation and neoliberalism" threaten the imminent destruction of local farming communities through free-trade agreements (FTAs).
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, South Korea signed FTAs with Chile in 2003, with Singapore and the European Free Trade Association in 2005, and with nine of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in June 2006. Currently it is negotiating FTAs with several countries including the US.
Bishop Choi acknowledges that it is not easy to go against the tide of globalisation, but he calls nonetheless for the government to institutionalise protection of farmers.
"We cannot help but see the FTAs as a desperate countermeasure to save the country’s economy as a whole" by selling more cars and mobile phones at the expense of local agriculture, he wrote.
Committee secretary Fr John Lee Gi-woo told UCA News that the agricultural sector, especially rice production, is one of the most difficult issues in the FTA negotiations between South Korea and the US.
Fr Lee expects this agreement will have a strong, adverse affect on the local farming sector, even though he admits that the FTA with Chile, a major farm-product exporter, "has had less influence" than expected.
Fr Augustine Yu Young-il, chaplain of the Korean Catholic Farmers’ Movement said he is worried about "the Church hierarchy’s low awareness of the crisis in agriculture and the risk involved" in FTAs.
The diocesan priest maintains that the FTA with the US is "not unavoidable, and should be stopped." Once it is signed, he warned, "the country will be economically subordinate to the United States." The cost, he continued, will be destruction of agriculture and the environment, along with mounting unemployment because of decreasing jobs.
The Korean Catholic Farmers’ movement, which belongs to the International Catholic Farmers Movement (FIMARC), has campaigned extensively on food sovereignty and right to development issues.
Bishop Choi’s message points out that the Church established Farmers’ Sunday in 1995 in order to make Koreans, especially Catholics, aware of the importance of agriculture.
The bishop describes agriculture as "the industry of life" that supplies so many "common benefits." Similarly, "rice is the life of the Korean people and the sovereignty of the nation," he says in the message, urging that the value of agriculture not be judged only by market principles.
SOURCE
Church asks government to help farmers facing globalization (Indian Catholic, 10/7/06)
LINKS (not necessarily endorsed by Church Resources)
– International Catholic Farmers Movement (FIMARC)
– FIMARC Declaration (13/5/06)
– Korea: International meeting of Catholic farmers (Columbans, 22/5/06)
– FIMARC Statement on the Right to Development (UN ECOSOC, 6/2/02)
– Korean farmers (Wikipedia)
11 Jul 2006
