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12/11/2005:

"Thousands Protest Against WTO in Hong Kong"

...''Junk WTO,'' they chanted. ''Our world is not for sale.''

Police have been busy securing neighborhoods around the meeting venue, putting up mesh on buildings and blocking off streets to prevent the violence that has marred past WTO summits.

Members of the militant Korean Peasants League held up a banner that said, ''This hamburger is made of people's meat. Can you enjoy it?'' The sign showed a hamburger made of hands and feet. The group opposes further opening South Korea's market to agricultural imports.

British activist Tom Grundy was dressed like a chicken and held a sign that said, ''WTO: more dangerous than chicken flu.''

''We need to raise awareness of the true intention of the WTO. It's undemocratically elected. It undermines and overrides any law a country wants to bring to protect workers and the environment,'' he said.

Activists with the Indonesian Migrants' Workers Union were carrying a giant red and brown spider with a monster's head, which they said symbolized the WTO. They chanted ''Sink WTO now!'' Other demonstrators pounded on drums and clanged cymbals.

One Hong Kong protester posed as a slave master with a whip, while another wore a pig's mask to portray an exploitative employer.

Another group wheeled along lifesize statues of emaciated people, trying to make the point that farm subsidies in wealthy countries contribute to world hunger by keeping poor nations from selling their farm goods, according to a leaflet from a group that called itself the Danish Association for International Cooperation.

Members of the Indian farmers' group Tamil Nadu Dalit Women's Movement chanted, ''WTO out of agriculture.'' The group's spokeswoman, Fatima Bernad, said that opening India's market to imports would be devastating for farmers.
nytimkes.com