HONG KONG (UCAN) -- As the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong was about to start, international Catholic groups gathered to say, "Stop WTO!"

About 150 Catholic university students, Korean farmers, laypeople, priests and nuns from overseas kicked off a weeklong program responding to the Dec. 13-18 Sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO with a Mass, rally and march on Dec. 11. "Catholic Solidarity on WTO" is organizing the activities around the theme: "Stop WTO! Stop Killing People!"

Initiated by the Korean Catholic Farmers' Movement, International Movement of Catholic Students (IMCS) and International Catholic Movement for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, the solidarity movement is working with Hong Kong Church organizations to coordinate the activities.

After a Dec. 12 evening Mass at Star of the Sea Church, farmer and student representatives shared their concerns about globalization.

"The WTO initiated globalization, which turns everything into a commodity. Our principal food, rice, and the market (for rice) should not be commercialized," said Cheong Jae-don of the Korean Catholic Farmers' Movement.

"There is no winner in the jungle (market) built by the WTO, as one never knows when he will be 'eaten' by the others," he added. He asserted that "the WTO is against God's creation," charging that the trade body "wants to replace God and pretends to be God."

Cheong also expressed disappointment with the Korean government, which he said has failed to protect farmers faced with "the rules of the jungle."

According to Cheong, who led about 90 protesting members of his movement to Hong Kong, the Korean farmer population declined by half but their debt rose by four times in the last 10 years. "Young people have left rural areas and the average age of farmers is now over 60," he said.

Catholic farmer Nam Ju-seong from Andong diocese, in southeastern Korea, said that he decided to protest outside his country for the first time after the opening up of the domestic rice market to foreign suppliers and the reduction of Korean government subsidies to farmers as of last month. His family has engaged in paddy agriculture for generations, but a 20-percent decrease in the price of rice due to imports threatens this livelihood.

In late November, the South Korean National Assembly approved a bill to give nine countries greater access to the domestic rice market in exchange for delaying full liberalization 10 years until 2015. South Korea had signed an agreement in late 2004 with Australia, China, Thailand, the United States and five other rice-exporting countries to raise its rice-import quota to 7.96 percent of domestic consumption by 2014 from the current 4 percent.

Mehul Dabhi, a law student from Gujarat, India, shared his concern about the effects of globalization on education. He told UCA News Dec. 12 that after the WTO agreement on educational services, tuition fees at private universities in India have risen five times since 1998. He has had to reduce expenditures and cannot afford reference books. Also, local culture and history are being eroded by Western curricula, the 23-year-old IMCS member warned.

Joining the Hong Kong People's Alliance on the WTO, the local organizer of planned large-scale demonstrations during the conference, Catholic solidarity members took to the streets on Dec. 11 to voice concern for the marginalized.

Before the rally, the Catholic protesters attended a joint prayer gathering of Christians, "For Just Trade and a Compassionate World." They prayed through hymns, Bible readings and group prayers for justice and peace.

In his speech at the gathering, Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong said globalization, if imbued with the principles of justice and love, could lead to progress. However, if it is "guided only by the pursuit of profit and merciless competition, it becomes a machine," which produces wealth for a few people but "devours those who cannot defend themselves in the battle for survival of the fittest," the 73-year-old prelate continued.

He prayed for "globalization without marginalization and globalization with solidarity," and blessed the group before the Christians started marching.

Local and overseas organizations taking part in the rally included NGOs and farmer, labor and student groups. Activists carried colorful banners and huge puppets denouncing globalization during the two-hour march through the busy streets of Hong Kong. Police estimated that about 3,000 people took part, while organizers put the number at 4,500.

On the WTO conference agenda are agreements related to agriculture, cotton, e-commerce, the environment, intellectual property and services. About 5,800 delegates from all 149 members of the WTO are attending. More than 2,000 representatives of NGOs and of 40 states are observers. Among them are the five members of a Holy See delegation led by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who heads the Holy See's permanent observer mission to the United Nations.

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(Accompanying photos available at here)