Anti-FTA protesters clash with riot police in Jeju

Posted on : 2006-10-24 21:08 KST Modified on : 2006-10-24 21:08 KST

Riot police, using water cannons and clubs, on Tuesday dispersed hundreds of anti-globalization protesters trying to disrupt free trade talks between South Korea and the U.S., witnesses said.

About a dozen protesters were injured, two of them seriously, during a 90-minute clash that took place about 700 meters from a plush hotel where the talks were under way, they said.

One of the seriously injured, a farmer from the nation's southern provincial city of Gwangju was in a coma at a hospital, the witsses said. Fellow protesters identified him as Oh In-kyo, 43.

Violence erupted when about 300 farmers, part of an estimated 1,500 protesters, tried to march past about 1,700 riot police guarding the entrance to the meeting venue, witnesses said.

Police fired water cannons when a truck, in which dozens of protesters were riding, tried to ram against large metal containers stacked across a two-lane road leading to the hotel and topple them, they said.

The protesters, many of them armed with long bamboo sticks, attacked police, who retaliated by hitting back with long batons and plastic shields, they said.

South Korean farmers and factory workers strongly oppose their government's proposal to sign a free trade agreement with the U.S.

They argue that such a deal would endanger their livelihoods.

This weeks FTA talks, the fourth since June, are scheduled to continue until Friday.
Seogwipo, South Korea, Oct. 24 (Yonhap News)