The Death of Ramon Gonzalez and the 21st Century Dilemma

globalization understand it as a relatively straightforward task with relatively few costs.
They make their case with the weight of many of the most powerful nations behind them,
and they have played a critical role in the creation of such new institutions as the World
Trade Organization. They have been faced with determined opposition. While many of
those critical of globalization recognize the inevitable and even desirable character of
much of the process, they do not want it coupled to the rest of the neo-liberal agenda and
they want to pursue a more cautious and discriminating approach. The critics have acted
through new and existing organizations in occasional alliance with some national
governments to urge consideration of alternative paths. iii
The conflict between the two main perspectives on the problem led to dramatic
street confrontations between police and protestors at meetings on international trade and
economic policy in Seattle in 1999, in meetings at Davos, and Genoa, and at an
international agricultural bioengineering trade show held in Sacramento in 2003. At the
meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico, in September,
2003, simmering tensions within the organization broke out into an open challenge to the
dominance of rich-country strategies, a challenge led by Brazil, India, and China. As the
official national delegates argued the issues inside the meeting hall, tens of thousands of
people from peasant and farmer organizations protested in the streets. One of the
protestors, a peasant farmer and veteran leader of farmer organizations in South Korea,
took his own life in the conviction that his sacrifice was a cost that needed to be paid to
bring more public attention to the problems of small farmers and peasants in the face of
the policies being pushed by the WTO. Challenged from within the hall and from the
streets, the WTO was forced to recognize the failure of the strategy the rich nations had