Grassroots International

Grassroots supporter Andy Lin has traveled to Hong Kong with United Students Against Sweatshops and the Worker's Rights Consortium, and has sent us a few photographs of the scene there.

Above and to the left is a shot of a group of Hong Kong Police in full riot gear, waiting for a clash that never happened. Below, a shot of a peaceful group of women marching to the convention center on Thursday, Dec 15.

Many thanks to Andy for sending these photos and to all the people who've traveled to Hong Kong to struggle for a more just world.

Stay tuned for further updates.

Our latest dispatch from Hong Kong comes from George Naylor, who farms near Churdan, Iowa, is a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and is President of the National Family Farm Coalition:

Hong Kong.

I'm afraid it's lost it's exotic quality. Now almost everything is name brand. At least there's good public transportation, so traffic jams wouldn't be one reason to leave the city for the family farm like I left California 30 years ago.

Shopping for a cell phone the other night, a young salesperson wanted to know why anyone would oppose the WTO. "It does so many good things," he said.

Hmmm....

I wish I'd had the time to find out what he saw as a future for a young Hong Kong resident like himself. To what would one advance?

The following post is by Dena Hoff, farmer from Montana, Secretary of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), former chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. She is part of a delegation of U.S. farmers and farmworkers protesting against the WTO in Hong Kong with the Via Campesina this week. Grassroots Journal is very excited to be hosting these reports from inside the protest.

We are gearing up for our first major Via Campesina rally tomorrow. The largest farmers' delegations are arriving and settling in today, getting oriented and meeting each other, many of us for the first time.

Hong Kong is a giant shopper's paradise. Shopping seems to be a major recreational hobby with streets packed late into the night. Bling everywhere among the Christmas decorations.