World

S.Korea farmers clash with police before trade vote

SOUTH Korean police flee from protesters during a demonstration in front of the parliament in Seoul, Feb 9. - Reuterspix.

SEOUL Feb 9 - Rock-throwing South Korean farmers clashed with riot police outside parliament on Monday as they tried to block passage of a free trade agreement with Chile which growers fear will flood their markets with cheap produce.

Long-postponed votes on South Korea's first bilateral free trade agreement - and plans to send troops to Iraq - come as nervous legislators eye an April 15 general election to fill all 273 seats in the National Assembly, the unicameral parliament.

In a violent clash pitting about 10,000 police against 15,000 protesting farmers and students, farmers attacked police with metal rods, eggs and rocks. Police responded by blasting water cannon and fire extinguishers, witnesses said.

About a dozen police officers were injured and a dozen protesters were detained in a melee that prompted beleaguered police to spray tear gas at farmers who tried to overturn police buses, a Reuters photographer said.

Tear gas use was widespread during college campus demonstrations and labour strife of the 1980s and 1990s, but South Korean police had halted use of the acrid gas in 1998.

Inside the National Assembly, parliamentary leaders tried to find ways to hold a vote on the free trade agreement and on President Roh Moo-hyun's plan to send 3,000 troops to Iraq.

Two previous efforts to pass the FTA bill were thwarted when farm-belt lawmakers encircled the National Assembly speaker and physically prevented him from opening deliberations.

Seoul's FTA with Chile will still keep out politically sensitive imports of rice and meat, and the government has promised a 10-year $100 billion package to modernise the farm sector.

But South Korean farmers, who wield political clout far greater than their tiny contribution to gross domestic product, oppose any opening of the country's highly protected markets. They especially fear imports of Chilean fruit and vegetables.

Parliament's National Defence Committee approved the troop deployment by a vote of 12-2 on Monday. But there was no clear timetable for a full parliamentary vote on the plan to dispatch the 3,000 troops to Iraq to help reconstruction efforts.

Seoul military officials said they plan to send the troops to the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk in late April.

Politically, the strongest opposition to a South Korean deployment to Iraq has come from the party closest to Roh, the left-of-centre Uri Party.

The National Assembly is controlled by the conservative Grand National Party, which is Roh's bitter foe, but has supported plans to sending South Korean troops to Iraq. - Reuters