아셈 민간포럼 경제무역분과에 초청되었고 숭실대 전야제토론회에도 참가했던 벨기에
제3세계 외채탕감위원회 대표 에릭 투쌍의 아셈서울과 관련한 자기 조직내
보고입니다. 한국 운동 분위기가 매우 좋았나 봅니다. 프라하는 달리 노동자 참여가
많은 것에 대해 매우 좋은 평가를 하는군요. 에릭 투쌍은 제3세계 외채관련 책(your
life or your money(?))을 낸 바 있고, 12월 11-14일 세네갈 다카르에서 열리는
외채탕감 관련 회의에서도 발제를 하는 모양입니다. 퍼온 글을 영문으로만 올려서 좀
그렇군요...




Seoul: a new stage in the struggle 
against neoliberal globalization

Eric Toussaint 



The mobilizations at the 3rd Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM) which met on October 20
and 21, 2000 in Seoul (South Korea), represented a new stage in the struggle
against neoliberal globalization. Attending the summit were the heads of state
and government of 10 Asiatic countries The ten Asian countries are Brunei,
China, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
Vietnam. In terms of population, these countries represent nearly a third of
humanity. Among these countries figure all the economic and military
heavyweights of South east Asia and the Far East. and the 15 members of the
European Union. Prodi, Chirac, Schroeder, Blair and Aznar had made the trip to
meet their Asian equivalents so as to finalize trade agreements dominated by the
logic of deregulation, the opening up of the markets of the economies of the so
called developing countries to the commodities and capital of the more
industrialized countries, the flexibility of labour and complete liberty for all
holders of capital. 

To oppose this logic, trade unions, student movements and NGOs were also meeting
in the Korean capital. 
The crisis of 1997-98 which shook the whole of Southeast Asia has had
particularly harsh effects in Korea. According to official figures, 1.8 million
jobs have been lost (the trade union organizations speak of 2.6 million jobs
lost On this see the chapter “ee du Sud  Les syndicats face a la mondialisation
financiere  ” in the book Les peuples entrent en resistance which has just been
published jointly by Attac-France, the CADTM, the CETIM and Syllepse (October
2000). ). In the last three years, the movements of workers and students have
reacted to the offensive of the Korean government relaying the demands of the
IMF. The enormous debt of the private enterprises (more than $100 billion) has
been largely taken on by the state. The big industrial conglomerates have been
profoundly restructured with some of their activities having been sold to
foreign multinationals. Collective contracts as well as the labour code have
been modified, henceforth authorizing collective dismissals. 

In contrast to the mobilization in Prague (September 2000) where the trade union
organizations were largely absent, the participation of one of the two main
Korean trade union confederations set the tone. The KCTU Korean Confederation of
Trade Unions: http://kctu.org,
with 600,000 members of whom 250,000 are metalworkers, participated in the three
alternative forums which took place during the summit and constituted the main
force in a demonstration which attracted 12-15,000 people (20,000 according to
the local press!), on October 20. This trade union was created under the
dictatorship in the 1980s by a political generation of several hundred (indeed
thousand) students who went to the big factories to link up with industrial
workers and fight the monopoly of representation held by a trade union close to
the regime. The leaders of the KCTU are relatively young, between 35 and 50, and
place a great emphasis on developing unitary activities between workers’
organizations, students and other social movements. The KCTU was central to the
demonstrations in Seoul on October 18-20th. 

On October 18 and 19, the ASEM 2000 Forum of the Peoples took place under the
rubric “and action of the peoples defying globalization  ”, organized jointly
by the trade unions, the NGOs and the European and Asian citizens’ movements.
The 25 countries concerned were represented by delegates from the popular and
trade union movements. The Koreans had themselves selected the themes and
campaigns that they considered as central, like the campaign against the
policies of the IMF and the World Bank, for the cancellation of the debt, in
favour of the Tobin tax, for the improvement of working conditions in the
multinationals, those in the clothing and toymaking sector in particular, for
peace and against rearmament. To represent these campaigns, they had invited
from Europe TNI, Attac, the CADTM, the campaign “Clean clothes  ”, and others.
The struggle for the emancipation of women as well as the question of youth
occupied a central place. The Confederation International of Free Trade Unions
(ICFTU, 120 million affiliates worldwide) was also present. 
Dozens of representatives of popular movements from the Philippines, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Vietnama and elsewhere showed the wealth of resistance to neoliberal
globalization. 

The evening of the 19th constituted the pivot of the mobilization. At the
beginning of the evening, several(PSSP, KOPA…) and the Democratic Party of
Labour (15,000 members, 7,500 of them workers according to their sources) had
invited Roselyne Vachetta (a member of the European parliament for the LCR),
Pierre Rousset (Attac), Mamadou Diouck (Mouvement des sans papiers France) and
Eric Toussaint (CADTM) to speak to a highly charged assembly of 350 students.
The struggles in Seattle and Prague were analyzed and after a debate a
resolution was adopted in favour of the struggle against neoliberal
globalization and structural adjustment. 

This meeting was followed by an open air rally in one of the public universities
which attracted several thousand students and a delegation of 500 trade union
militants from the KCTU as well as 150 foreign guests. The tonality of this
rally recalled the best moments of the struggles of the period 1968 1976 in
Europe: revolutionary songs (the Internationale was sung four times),
affirmation of internationalism and opposition to capital, red flags, fists
raised… Knowing that any rally of more than three people was forbidden from the
moment of the official opening of the ASEM, 2,500 students and workers stayed up
all night in the university to try to demonstrate together with the objective of
preventing the arrival of the official delegations. The relationship of forces
was not favorable because the authorities had mobilized 29,000 riot police.
After having demonstrated some hundreds of meters away the demonstration of
students and workers had to face police violence and broke up into small groups.

On Saturday afternoon there was another rally of 1215,000 people (called by the
same coalitions and the KCTU) which was followed by a march of several
kilometers to the place where the ASEM summit was being held. 


----------------------------------------------------------------------

1 The ASEM summit takes place every two years. The first took place in Bangkok
in 1996, the second in London in 1998. The next will take place in Copenhagen in
2002. 
2 The ten Asian countries are Brunei, China, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. In terms of population, these
countries represent nearly a third of humanity. Among these countries figure all
the economic and military heavyweights of South east Asia and the Far East. 
3 On this see the chapter “ee du Sud  Les syndicats face a la mondialisation
financiere  ” in the book Les peuples entrent en resistance which has just been
published jointly by Attac-France, the CADTM, the CETIM and Syllepse (October
2000). 
4 Korean Confederation of Trade Unions: http://kctu.org