Ruling party tables Korea-U.S. FTA amid collision with opposition

By Shin Hae-in

SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- Hammers, fire extinguishers and fists flew at the parliament Thursday but did not stop the ruling conservative party from tabling a free trade pact with Washington for National Assembly approval.

Determined to have the controversial free trade agreement (FTA) ratified before
the end of this year, President Lee Myung-bak's Grand National Party (GNP)
physically barred opposition lawmakers from a committee room and laid the motion
before the National Assembly. The trade deal has been sitting on the shelf in the
respective legislatures of the two countries since June last year.
Scores of lawmakers from the largest opposition Democratic Party and the minority
Democratic Labor Party scuffled for hours with security officials who had been
guarding the hall since Wednesday.
"No FTA for the country!" "No dictatorship in the parliament!" Opposition
legislators called out, shaking their fists in the air.
As security officials, mobilized by the GNP, continued to bar them from entering
the committee room, some lawmakers used hammers and chisels to tear out the back
door. They still could not enter, however, as a fire extinguisher was blasted to
break off the scuffling. No one was seriously hurt.
"The law has been ignored and the Constitution has been trampled down by
violence," GNP lawmaker Park Jin, who heads the parliamentary committee on trade,
said before putting the motion up for vote Thursday.
Only 10 out of 29 committee members were present and voted in favor of paving the
way for early ratification of the FTA in the absence of opposition party members.

The timing of the legislature's FTA approval has turned into a source of intense
political dispute here, especially after Democrat Barack Obama, critical of the
FTA, won the U.S. presidential election last month.
While the conservative ruling party wants immediate ratification to bolster the
government's market-oriented economic initiatives, opposition parties say South
Korea should take more time and observe the changes in the U.S. Congress.
"The opposition party does not have a valid reason to oppose starting discussion
of the deal," said GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo. "We have already said related
bills will not be reviewed until after the United States ratifies the FTA. How
many more concessions do we have to make?"
President Lee's party controls an absolute majority of 172 seats in the
299-member parliament, enough to approve the bilateral deal without opposition
party legislators.
The liberal main opposition, holding 83 seats, is determined to delay the
ratification until after Washington requests its legislature to approve it.
"The Korea-U.S. FTA is not signed between the ruling party and the opposition,
but between the two countries. Our ratification has no meaning until the United
States makes the same decision," said its leader Chung Sye-kyun. "Why waste time
and risk bilateral disputes?"
The Korea-U.S. FTA, struck between Seoul's former leader Roh Moo-hyun and his
counterpart George W. Bush, is the single biggest trade pact between the two
longstanding allies. It is expected to boost two-way trade, which totaled US$79
billion in 2007, by as much as $20 billion in the coming years.
Business groups here want early an ratification of the agreement, complaining
that the delay is causing heavy losses to South Korean exporters of manufactured
goods to the world's biggest market.
Farmers, however, are demanding sufficient compensation and countermeasures,
fearing they will not be able to compete with cheaper imported products once the
deal is finalized.
Obama is fundamentally pro-free trade but views the deal with South Korea as
flawed, especially in the auto trade sector.