WTO CANCUN

NY Times: Farming Is Korean's Life and He Ends It in Despair

JANGSU, South Korea, Sept. 15 - Before Lee Kyung Hae left for Mexico on
his final mission to defend South Korean farmers, he climbed a hill behind
his old apple orchard here. In the quiet solitude of his former farm, he
cleaned up around his wife's tomb. "He cut all the grass before
departing," Lee Kyang Ja, his older sister, said with surprise today,
coming upon the site after climbing a dirt road behind the farm. On
Wednesday in Cancún, Mexico, Mr. Lee, a 55-year-old farm union leader,
scaled a barricade outside a meeting of the World Trade Organization
and then fatally plunged his old Swiss Army knife into his heart.

The big news out of Cancún this week was the breakdown in the World
Trade Organization talks, as the developing nations walked out in frustration
over farm subsidies. To most of the world, Mr. Lee's act may have
seemed like a sideshow, the latest face of extreme antiglobalist protest,
perhaps, just a final desperate measure by a disturbed man. But in rural
communities like this one in southern South Korea, Mr. Lee, a
three-time member of the provincial assembly, was seen as a heroic figure, a
defender of debt-ridden farmers struggling to maintain an age-old agrarian
tradition in a fast-developing country where manufacturing is king.