Korean Farmer Takes Own Life Amid Protests in Cancún
September 10, 2003

Today in Cancún, Kyung Hae Lee, a 56-year old South Korean farmer, died after stabbing himself in protest of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a global trading institution that has been leaving farmers hopeless and desperate, and silently killing them the world over.

Lee was among the 120 Korean farmers who courageously rammed a dragon structure into the chain-linked fence barricade heavily armed with police and military separating civil society from the official trade meeting. After the barricade fell, Lee climbed to the top and stabbed himself in the chest. He was rushed to the hospital and died soon after.

Lee's sacrifice underscores the urgent plight he and small farmers around the world face under the current negotiations on agriculture. "He believed that if the negotiations go through, it will be the death of the Korean farmer," said a colleague with the Korea Peoples' Solidarity Movement. Lee joined the thousands of farmers who traveled continents to protest the dead end that the WTO presents, signaling to the rest of the world that he was willing to sacrifice his own life--thousands of miles away from his family and his people--instead of silently suffocating under the harsh rules of the WTO.

His death today falls symbolically on Chusok, one of the largest national Korean holidays where family and friends gather to give thanks to their ancestors for the food they have harvested.