It's not that the WTO wasn't listening, but that the protesters weren't saying anything. Apart from vacuous slogans ("Down, down, WTO"), the protesters - especially the Korean farmers - didn't say what they wanted. If they did, the whole protest would have grounded to a halt in stunned silence.
Korea is, of course, a developed country. The Korean farmers are recipients of heavy government subsidies. They say that, if those subsidies are removed, they cannot sustain their businesses.
In short, they make their living by using the economic leverage of their rich government to get one-up on farmers from developing nations, in *exactly* the same way as American and European farmers, who everyone so readily caricatures as fat white men prospering at the expense of poor black people.
(Except, unfortunately for the Korean farmers, they don't hold the electoral colleges of swing states that elects their president.)
If several thousand American farmers came to Hong Kong and fucked some shit up to demand the continuation of their privilege at the expense of their counterparts in developing countries, I can imagine the international disgust that would ensue.
This is what the Korean farmers did.
But nobody realised that the Korean farmers were pro-subsidies, and I'm not sure if the Korean farmers realised that all the farmers from developing countries (who weren't there because the idea that they could afford to fly is preposterous) were the driving force against farming subsidies, rather than the Rich White Folks.
As for the assorted socialists and anarchists, I'm not if they realised that everyone else made their living, meager or otherwise, off international trade. Oh sure, everyone might be better off if we dismantled the system of international trade, but they'll just have to weather through a wee period of "structural realignment" that would involve them eating cotton for the next five years.
By the end, I was terribly uninspired by the whole thing. Ended up missing the outright rioting on Saturday, which was a shame - the police had upgraded from the pocket-sized mace to the family-sized bottles and drenched everyone in it. Sam Graham got maced a bit, but says it wasn't so bad, unlike the tear-gas.
The Koreans were resourceful and tactically savvy. They surprised police by (shock, horror) not following the designated route, and managed to break through thin lines of non-riot-geared police and run amok in the streets, which forced the riot police to play catch-up for ages. They kick the metal bars off the barriers and used them as clubs, threw what was left of the barriers, formed a diamond with other barriers and used it as a battering ram (looked cool, but wasn't very effective). Guess they won't be using them next time, then.
Ah, loyal metal crowd-control barrier, how I shall miss jumping over thee.
In the aftermath, people in Hong Kong are not impressed. 60-odd police were hospitalised with light injuries and the property damage is nothing a big clean-up crew can't fix, but people don't appreciate having to evacuate their homes and their shops because there's a friggin' riot going on outside. Moreover, the leaders of many of the Korean groups pledged to follow the law and protest peacefully when they first arrived.
Lawful and peaceful protests don't involve battering rams.
(And if they did, they'd turn the barriers upside-down first so that there's less friction.)