Tear gas, scuffles as South Korea OKs US trade deal
South Korean lawmakers voted 151 to 7 in favor of ratifying the landmark trade agreement in a surprise legislative session called by the ruling Grand National Party, parliamentary officials said.
Shouts and screams filled the National Assembly as ruling party lawmakers forced their way onto the parliamentary floor. Amid the scuffling, one opposition lawmaker doused rivals with tear gas.
Security guards hustled him out of the chamber as he shouted and tried to resist. Outside the National Assembly building, opponents of the deal scuffled with police mobilized to maintain order.
The pact is America's biggest free-trade agreement since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. Two-way trade between the United States and South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy, totaled about $90 billion last year, according to the South Korean government.
After the deal was approved less than an hour after the tussle began, dozens of opposition lawmakers and aides - who fought hard to prevent passage of an agreement they say favors the US over South Korean workers - sat slumped around the chamber podium. One legislator leaned her head against the shoulder of another as they both stared at the floor in silence.
Such chaotic scenes are not uncommon in South Korea's parliament, where rival parties have a history of resorting to physical confrontation over highly charged issues. In 2008, opposition lawmakers used a sledgehammer to try and force their way into a barricaded committee room to stop the ruling party from introducing a debate on the US trade deal.
President Lee Myung-bak's ruling party commands a majority in South Korea's single-chamber, 295-seat parliament but hadn't forced the deal through earlier, apparently out of worry over a public backlash ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections; Kazinform cites Arab News.
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