Advancing into Indonesia: A Journey Against the WTO and Free Trade (Part 1)

At the end of November last year, because the Alliance for the Defense of Rural Life (abbreviated as the Farmers' Alliance) was invited by the international farmers' organization La Via Campesina (LVC), we traveled to Bali, Indonesia to take part in an international protest against the WTO and free trade, led by Social Movements for an Alternative Asia (SMAA) and Indonesia's local Gerak Lawan social movement alliance (a grassroots movement against neocolonialism and imperialism). The Farmers' Alliance is a member organization of La Via Campesina, so we went to Indonesia together to join the protest.

But before going to Bali, some of our members first went to Jakarta, because Japan was about to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would have a major impact on Japanese agriculture, so Japan's farmers' organization - the National Federation of Farmers' Movements (abbreviated as the Farmers' Federation) specifically invited countries from La Via Campesina's East Asia and Southeast Asia region to discuss each country's Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as well as to discuss understanding of and resistance to the TPP.

Those who came early to Jakarta for this discussion, besides us, included Mr. Hong Hyung-sik and Ms. Irma Yanny from the La Via Campesina East Asia and Southeast Asia secretariat, Ms. Yun and representatives from the Korean Women Farmers Association, Mr. Joo Je-jun from the Korean Alliance Against FTA and TPP, lawyer Yudha Fathoni and chairman Henry Saragih from Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), chairman Koji Mashima and representatives from Japan's Farmers' Federation, secretary-general Baramee Chaiyarat from Thailand's Assembly of the Poor (AOP), Dr. Matthew from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and also present was the president of La Via Campesina, Ms. Elizabeth Mpofu from the Zimbabwe Smallholder Farmer Forum.

From the reports of each country, it can be seen that the main objection to free trade in every country lies in the dumping of cheap agricultural products, which causes major losses to domestic agriculture.

(Getting ready to leave Jakarta for Bali, location: Jakarta airport)