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Farmers in violent clashes
15/11/2005 13:34 - (SA)
Seoul - Dozens of people were injured in violent clashes between police and South Korean farmers on Tuesday.
The farmers were demonstrating against free trade policies ahead of this week's Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.
Farmers carrying steel pipes and bamboo sticks clashed with riot police outside the national assembly in Seoul, torching a police bus as police used a water cannon to drive them back.
Witnesses said dozens of people were hurt, some bleeding from the head.
The farmers were demonstrating ahead of this week's APEC summit in the port city of Busan, as lawmakers consider a draft that could open up South Korea's rice market.
Last year, South Korea agreed to double rice imports to meet a World Trade Organization (WTO) accord which allows Seoul a grace period - until 2014 - before all import restrictions on rice are lifted.
The government has pledged greater financial benefits to the embattled farming community as compensation for this, but farmers say they will increase their protests if the assembly endorses the deal.
Some protesters carried a banner showing United States President George W Bush thrusting a knife into a rice bag.
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