“Stop ROK-US FTA - making consumers exposed to serious food danger"
Voice of People | 20.10.2006
“Stop ROK-US FTA, Making Consumers Exposed to Serious Food Danger"
"FTA, Making Consumers Exposed to Serious Food Danger.”
Jin Hye-Won
While the 4th ROK-US FTA were in progress in Jeju Island, 101 scholars related to sociology issued a statement, urging the suspension of the negotiations.
The scholars, who belonged to Korean Rural Sociological Society (KRSS), Korean Sociological Association (KSA), Korean Industrial Sociological Association (KISA) and Korean Comparative Sociological Association (KCSA), criticized government at the press conference held at the National Assembly Press Center in the afternoon on October 23, saying “the government is hastily seeking the settlement of negotiations without any detailed examination of social, economic and cultural influences.”
“It is clear Korea’s rural communities and farmers will suffer from the greatest damages, since Korean government is exaggerating only the positive influences of the ROK-US FTA without any clear ground”, criticized they government in their statement, “Nevertheless, the government is attributing farmers’ objection to FTA to group egoism, arguing farmers must tolerate losses for national benefit.”
In addition, they noted that “consumers are exposed to serious food danger”, saying that “the ROK-US FTA are highly universal problems directly related to the food safety and sovereignty of all people.”
In conclusion, they argued that government promptly suspend the ROK-US FTA which abandon people’s health, farmers, farm villages and farming under the pretext of economic logic; that government decide whether and when to pursue the FTA according to the will of people after evaluating their social influences sufficiently and examining their results in detail; that National Assembly make the one-sided pursuit of negotiations immediately suspended; and that government and National Assembly reform the systems in general related to food.
