Anti-Korea US Free Trade Agreement Protests Dec 4-8

DOWN WITH THE KOREA-UNITED STATES FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (KORUS FTA)

DEC. 4 – 8, 2006
Join Us for a Week of Protest in Big Sky Resort, Montana

Beginning Mon., Dec. 4 and 2 PM @ Bozeman City Hall
On the Corner of Rousse and Main St.

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY
For more information call (718) 335-0419 or email yul-san@nodutdol.org

The U.S. and South Korean governments began FTA negotiations in June, 2006. Now they are in a race to finish at the expense of democratic process and the lives of millions.

JOIN PEASANT, LABOR AND COMMUNITY LEADERS FROM SOUTH KOREA TO PROTEST THE TRADE TALKS AND NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION.

WHAT: From December 4 to 8 delegations of U.S. and Korean protesters will join forces to oppose the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement negotiations, to be held at Big Sky Resort in Montana. Rallies, vigils, marches, direct actions and solidarity events will take place in Big Sky and the near by city of Bozeman. Give us a call NOW to find out how you can get involved and look out for updates with specific times and places in the coming weeks.

WHO: This week of protest is sponsored by; The Korean Alliance Against Korea-US FTA (KoA), a South Korean coalition of 280 organizations AND Korean Americans Against War and Neoliberalism (KAWAN), a U.S. coalition of progressive U.S.-based Korean organizations endorsed by close to 100 immigrant, people of color, LGBT, farmers’, workers’, women’s, national liberation, anti-war and anti-globalization groups from around the country.

WHY: The Big Sky negotiations are the fifth round of FTA talks between South Korea and the U.S. KoA and KAWAN’s joint protests began during the first round of talks in Washington, DC in June. In July we followed the negotiators to the second round in Seoul, where over a hundred thousand people protested in the streets. The struggle then went to Seattle for the 3rd round and then Jae Ju Island at the southern tip of Korea. In the past months we have applied constant pressure and asserted our opposition. By now negotiators are bemoaning their poor progress and have had to admit publicly that the KorUS will not be concluded in December as they had originally hoped. They are grumpy and tired of protesters, so they are trying stay out of our reach by holding the talks behind closed doors in an upscale ski resort in Montana. MT’s Senator Max Baucus has had the audacity to invite the negotiators to spend their week in luxury, hidden away on a mountain in “his state.” Progressive people in both South Korea and the U.S are outraged at this deliberate attempt to silence the voices of those who will be most negatively impacted by the KorUS FTA. Free trade policies such as this have had devastating effects on the lives of Americans as well as workers in the partner countries. Politicians and big corporations claim Free Trade Agreements will encourage foreign direct investment, create jobs and jump-start economies, but in fact they only support elite classes and the governments they back. NAFTA sent formerly high paying manufacturing jobs to
Mexico, forced Mexican subsistence farmers to the cities, drove wages and working conditions, leading many to risk their lives immigrating to the U.S. South Koreans and U.S. farmers and workers will suffer the same results it the KorUS FTA passes.

The two coalitions, KoA and KAWAN, formed this year in response to the KorUS-FTA, but the main actors; farmers, workers, students and activists, have a shared history of struggle against neoliberialism starting with the anti-WTO protests in Seattle (1999), Cancun (2003) and more recently, Hong Kong (2005).

THE STRUGGLE AGAINTS THE KORUS FTA IS A KEY STRUGGLE IN THE GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST NEOLIBERALISM. JOIN US!!!
What You Can Do to Support
1. Speak to your organization about the struggle and add your name to a list
of endorsing Montana groups that will be released at an opening press
conference and sent to South Korea as a show of solidarity. If your
organization would like to endorse, please email yul-san@nodutdol.org.
2. Come out to protests through out the week, particularly to opening and
closing actions in Bozeman on the 4th and 8th. And bring your friends.
(Specific times and locations will be released shortly.)
3. Pass the information around to organizations and allies you know.
4. Make a financial contribution to KAWAN. These weeks of protest to really
expensive and we’re in this for the long haul. Checks should be made out to
“Nodutdol” with “KAWAN donation” in the memo and sent to 53-22
Roosevelt Ave. 2nd Floor, Woodside, NY 11377.