On Dec.7, as President Bush entertained guests inside the White House, a small but spirited protest took place just outside on Pennsylvania Avenue in the freezing cold. The action was in solidarity with protests in Big Sky, Montana, where the fifth round of negotiations of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA) took place Dec. 4-8.
The KorUS FTA, if implemented, will negatively impact workers and farmers in both South Korea and the United States by eliminating trade barriers that protect South Korea’s national economy from U.S. economic domination.
The fifth round of negotiations was originally scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., but the negotiations were moved to an affluent ski resort nine miles up a mountain in Big Sky, Montana, after prior rounds of negotiations in Seoul, Washington, D.C., and Seattle were heavily protested.
Similar actions were taken in October during the fourth round of negotiations. After hundreds of thousands protested in Seoul in July, negotiations were moved from the populous capital city to the isolated island of Jae Ju, situated 60 miles off the southern coast of the peninsula.
As public sentiment in South Korea has increasingly turned against the KorUS FTA, the government of that country has resorted to increasingly repressive measures against activists and trade union leaders, including raids of offices, arrest warrants and the banning of all protest actions opposing the KorUS FTA.
The Dec. 7 action was jointly called by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and the National Association of Korean Americans (NAKA). A picket line of was formed while demonstrators chanted “down with the KorUS FTA.” There were signs stating that the KorUS FTA is economic colonialism. Attendees from NAKA also held a large banner that said “No to the KorUS FTA!” Speeches were given by H. Kyo Suh, executive director of NAKA, and Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition.
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