________________________________________________________________________________ ==========================================================================[01]== Dear Friends, Here is an account of the WTO actions in Seattle from my perspective. I have been doing nonviolence training for several days and I was on the street all day today. -- Peter _________________ Notes on 11-30-99 WTO Protest Actions Overall Impressions * The protests today represented a new beginning of cooperation between labor, environmental, peace, human rights and other groups. Many were represented and worked together very well. * The direct action was carried out by mainly young activists who had been trained for the week before and handled themselves superbly, by and large. They were disciplined, radical, well-educated and had a good grasp of the value of nonviolence, at least as a tactic. I found that they knew a remarkable amount about WTO, free trade, capitalism and related topics. * The City of Seattle's downtown area was completely shut down. The people took over the streets and the police were not able to exercise more than token control over them. * For the most part, the police behaved well. They were seriously outnumbered, stressed, provoked at times and probably felt frightened. Nevertheless, they used force sparingly and overstepped the need infrequently. * The protesters did a magnificent job of policing themselves. The minor outbreaks of violent anger were contained by the demonstrators with surprising skill and commitment. * The WTO meetings were seriously impacted. The opening was delayed, many delegates were prevented from attending at all, and those who did could not get to their meetings without running the gantlet of angry protesters making their message clear in both mass and invidual ways. * It was probably a very significant day in the history of people's power, "free" trade evolution and defense of democracy. Personal Experiences After gathering at Steinbrueck Park at 7 a.m. today, we marched downtown in a huge march which stretched for many blocks. How many I couldn't tell from my position within it, but we were only half of the total since another march started from another location, converging on the WTO meeting place from another direction. Once downtown, we split into different sub-groups to occupy different parts of downtown. The area around the WTO had been divided into thirteen sectors with clusters of affinity groups (small autonomous action groups) responsible for deciding upon ¾ and carrying out ¾ a blockade of their sector. My group marched around downtown a bit and wound up in front of the Sheraton Hotel, where many delegates were staying. Human blockades were set up by dedicated affinity groups at every entrance, including the parking garage. Protesters lined up across the entrances, linked arms and stood their ground. At several points there were face-to-face standoffs between protesters and police. The police wore face shields, gas masks (at times) and body armor and carried long sticks, sidearms, pepper spray and sometimes plastic riot shields. The protesters wore old clothes, rain protection and bandannas against tear gas. Some were wildly costumed and a few had gas masks. There was some pushing and rough stuff now and then when delegates tried to get out of the hotel or get back in. Protesters tried to prevent any entry or egress and sometimes the delegates tried to push through. When they did, police interfered, if they were close by. About 10 a.m. tear gas was used by the police to clear the immediate area. By that time I had moved up the street and was not gassed. When the gas dispersed, I went back down to find out what had occasioned the use of the gas. It had been used to clear the intersection along Union to afford meeting access to some WTO delegates. However, rather few of them appeared to be using it. The police lined both sides of the intersection to keep it clear. As the delegates walked through, the crowd booed them loudly and then began shouting "shame, shame." A few minutes later, another tear gas attack back up the street drove people down toward my position and the gas followed them. I was gassed slightly. As I walked around downtown, I found that practically every intersection was filled with people dancing, drumming and blockading and the numbers were truly amazing. The police were mostly holding various lines and not letting people through them. Then periodically they would use tear gas to clear an area. People would leave the area, circle around to another block and come back when the gas dispersed. The police would shortly abandon the intersection they had just secured and move to another one and the process would begin again. The upshot of this was that the police were unable to protect much of anything at all, yet hey could not spare the manpower to arrest demonstrators without losing control of the areas they were trying to protect. The downtown was firmly in the protesters' hands and it was clear that without the consent of the governed not much could be accomplished, if enough of the governed decided to resist. Some of the signs that impressed me included: * The Senators who ratified the WTO Treaty should be tried for treason. * Do YOU remember voting for the WTO? * Keep the sweatshop in the sauna. * More health, less wealth. * I hope you can eat your money. * No legislation without representation. I saw two police cars parked in the street as part of a police counter blockade. One had a flat rear tire and both had such graffiti as "Pig" and "Fuck cops" spray-painted to them. There was also some glass breakage,overturning of dumpsters and paper boxes and defacing of buildings, but the damage was trivial considering the huge numbers of people in the area, the anger that the tear-gassing triggered and the wealth of those against which the property damage was directed. More important, though, was the response of the demonstrators to virtually every outbreak of property damage or hot-headedness. Demonstrators moved immediately to quell property damage and equally determinedly to break up conflicts. Others immediately began to chant "Nonviolent protest! Nonviolent protest! The effect was to put the rowdier elements on notice that their tactics were not appreciated by the vast majority of those present. I even saw a line of demonstrators link arms to successfully protect the windows of a VoiceStream Wireless store from window-breakers. The favorite chant of the day was "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! WTO has got to go!" Not too imaginitive, perhaps, but easy to learn and it had a good rhythm. At one point, a group sang the Star Spangled Banner. When they got to the line about the land of the free, people stopped singing and went into wild applause. Another favorite chant was "Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!" Crowd size estimates on the news seem to have been characteristically small: one early report said there were 5,000 downtown in the morning. I would guess the number at 4-6 times that, though that is only a guess. All I can say is that all the streets I went to were full of people and I would guess that a tightly packed block would probably hold about 1,000 people. Even a loosely packed block would have to have 3-400 in it. And there were blocks like that up and down many streets. I can't imagine there were less than 10-20,000 downtown in the morning and possibly as many as 30,000. Then there must have been a good 40-50,000 in the "Big" labor march which came downtown in the afternoon. That would boost the count to 50-60,000, maybe even as high as 70,000. Honest estimates based on helicopter pictures could be made, but I don't know if they will be. In many intersections, protesters "locked down." They connected themselves to each other and to heavy blocks or concrete-filled pipes to make it impossible for the police to move them. This was another reason the cops didn't arrest people. They just couldn't. Some of those locked down were still in the intersections when the police used tear gas in the area and they just had to endure it. I spoke briefly to a WTO delegate from Trinidad and Tobago ¾ a small country of less than 2,000 square miles ¾ which has what he called "manageable debt." He seemed to understand what we were protesting about quite well. Especially he understood the trade-offs forced by the requirements of debt repayment. People on the streets were often very helpful towards one another, sharing water, helping them out of areas in which they didn't want to be, washing each other's eyes and so on. A few medical types are carrying saline solution for severe tear gas victims. There are also legal observers wearing specially printed white T-shirts and taking notes on what they see going on. Two kinds of tear gas seemed to be in use. One was whitish-grey and seemed to remain relatively local where it was shot. The other was dark, almost black, and seemed to blanket much larger areas quickly. It obscures vision like smoke even if you don't get anywhere near it. I heard many fascinating conversations about the relative power of violence and nonviolence. It was wonderful to hear so many people who weren't me carrying the defense of nonviolence in these circumstances. In some places there was plastic yellow tape marked "Police crime scene. Do not cross." In many others there was identical looking tape which said instead, "Unseen crimes." A very disciplined drum corps with drums, cymbals, flags and a whistle-blowing majorette dressed in dark, revolutionary-looking clothing showed up from time to time throughout the day. They would march in tight formation along the street, playing and responding to the whistled commands of the majorette. Then, at a whistled signal, they would begin to deploy in various patterns. They were entertaining, clever, humorous and good at what they do. At one point, as they marched down a street, they suddenly veered sharply left and walked right into Starbucks, playing and marching around several times to the shock of the customers, some of which left at once. The vanguard of the "Big" march arrived downtown about 1:30, occupying the whole street. Although it came in fits and starts, it flowed past my vantage point for 50 minutes before I found my Salem friends and joined them. We looped through a number of blocks of downtown and then began to head out of downtown a block over from where the march came in. To my amazement, we could see a steady stream still coming in! It was 2:45. I left the march and stood on the corner to view the rest of the march. By 3 p.m. the march's end had passed the point at which is could see it entering downtown a block up the street. However, it was still another 20 minutes before the end passed my vantage point. This means that a march that often filled the entire street took about an hour and a half to pass one point. Could that be less than 50,000? I saw signs for at least these unions: steelworkers, electrical workers, teachers, bricklayers, ILWU (Longshoremen), painters, Stanford workers, service employees, teamsters, sheet metal workers, marine engineers, transit workers, boilermakers, plumbers steamfitters and refigerations workers, public service workers of Canada, cement masons, pulp paper and woodworkers, nurses, Canadian airways workers and carpenters. When the march had left, I went back to one of the lockdowns on 6th Avenue right next to the Sheraton Hotel. There were still a lot of people downtown. There were clearly less than before, but they still filled many blocks and the occupation continued. At one point there was a disturbance as two men appeared to be trying to break though a line of protesters which was linked to prevent delegates from getting past. Behind them was a line of police. There was a scuffle and I went right over there to see if I could help maintain the peace. One of the two fell down and immediately got up, very freaked out. I began to calm him only to have my attention drawn to the other who was a few feet away. His suit coat was open and he had a sidearm holster from which he had already removed the gun. It was pointing down, but I had a moment of serious fear as I realized that, should he raise the weapon, I would be right in his immediate line of fire. However, he did not raise it. Rather, he and the other man crossed through the police line and were gone. The crowd had responded at once, shouting "He's got a gun. He's got a gun." and pointing. The police responded by spraying the entire scene, including me, with pepper spray. Although I have seen tear gas a number of times before, I had never confronted pepper spray before. It's pretty painful just to have on your skin. It must be really awful to have in your eyes. At 5 p.m., the police moved to clear the entire area. They began firing off large amounts of tear gas and people began to run down 6th. A number of us shouted for them to walk to prevent panic and stampede. Then we moved slowly out of the area. The tear gas overtook us and I was gassed more heavily this time. The stuff isn't as nasty as what they used to use in the 60s, but it's bad enough. Shortly after that I left. I later heard that the police used gas to clear most of the protesters out, but some remained and the day's first arrests took place that evening. I heard numbers like 22 and 25 ¾ a tiny number considering how many had been there during the day. Taken as a whole, the day was an unquestioned success. The WTO could not help but get the message about how they were viewed by the many thousands present. Moreover, they had not been able to agree on their agenda before they arrived for this meeting and then they lost a good deal of yesterday because the downtown area was so congested and even more of today due to delays and absence of delegates. Thanks for reading this far, if you have. Please forward this to people who should be informed. Thank you. Peter Bergel - -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- ==========================================================================[02]== Seattle, Washington, November 30, 1999 Just a quick message after my first day in Seattle, where thousands of World Trade Organization delegates from 135 member countries, many more from countries with observer status, carried on their first meetings as thousands of people assembled and marched, a few looked for something more (direct, violent, media-worthy), and hundreds of police and members of the press played the parts we have all come to expect in these kinds of events. I was staying with a friend from community networking activities. He and his children were taking part in the labor march, which began a few miles from his house at a large stadium in downtown Seattle. His young daughter carried her sign "Kids say NO to WTO." His son had his camcorder, a lot of tape, and batteries with a very long life. We took a public bus and went to a park on Denny when hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners were silently standing, holding large banners, and soliciting support for their struggle with the PRC government in Beijing. A small environmental rally next to the park was not waking up the few hundred who came early to listen and then march to join the larger labor march. Many other groups are using this event to publicize their own agenda, many of which do not have much to do with trade. A Khmer minority in Vietnam held up banners protesting treatment by the Hanoi government, and Lao students were parading for democracy. The labor rally drew thousands of union members and others in the morning. The stands were not totally full, but they were thousands of exuberant machinists, longshoremen, ferry boat workers, and people from the building trades, the teamsters, and even airline pilots who came to listen to dozens of labor leaders exhort the crowd to opposing the WTO and doing a bit of education about environmental issues, child labor conditions, and labor organizing trends in other countries. Besides strong speakers from the steelworkers, there were organizers from Mexico, Malaysia, El Salvador, Canada, and South Africa who had a few minutes before the mike. Unfortunately, this went on for hours. The weather was decent as the morning grew shorter, and people began to move out on their own to begin the march. This proceeded slowly downtown. Volunteer marshals lined the roads to direct marchers down the right streets. A few people lined the sidewalks near the businesses that were closed for the event. Everything seemed benign and low key, in spite of the podium-thumping speeches back at the stadium. Once downtown, another group diverted some of the labor marchers in an attempt to move them in closer proximity to the police. By word of mouth we learned that early morning participants of an "illegal march" had skirmished with the police after some members began breaking store windows with hammers and crowbars. They had come prepared for a much different kind of event than the labor march. There was no traffic downtown except for some law enforcement vehicles. Most businesses were closed. A Mexican/Italian restaurant was very busy, and a few convenience stores were open. Others had owners or workers outside to protect the sites from vandalism. By early afternoon the march ended, but thousands were milling around, singing, sitting in front of the rows of police in riot gear, and media people with cameras looked desperate for compelling footage. Some parade organizers were trying to keep things calm ("Peace and love, brothers!") while others also chose language and phrases from the 60's and yelled at the "pigs." Tear gas was used in some cases, usually to get groups to move, but all the movements by the crowd and the police were slow and deliberate. What struck me was the awareness by all parties that their actions could be on television by that evening. For some that was the goal. For the cops, it was to stay off television. In late afternoon there were more confrontations, and it has nothing directly to do with the WTO or the issues that attracted thousands to town. I came to the intersection of Third and Pine. A film of gas obscured the advancing police, and a young man stood as blood ran down his head. He said he felt fine, but head wounds bleed profusely. A friend called, not for medical aid, but "Get a newspaper cameraman over here!" The concern was with media documenting the casualty, not (just yet) the treatment of the wound. Rumors flew around, and people would look for newspaper stands, a radio, or a television in a restaurant to find out what they were experiencing in the streets. It reminded me of people who first turn on the weather channel rather than look outside to see what the weather is. People, even those in the thick of the events, depend on mediated experiences to make them feel grounded. I also felt that various factions came to convince, not to learn or be swayed. Politicians might see street demonstrations and be swayed to change a stance, but the core activists present in Seattle (and probably the trade delegates too) probably are having very different reactions to the day's events. I saw delegates who mingled in the streets, and others who seemed fearful of the chaotic conditions. Delegates have an ID pin to display to guards and police at checkpoints, hotel entrances, and the conference halls. The International Forum on Globalization, a San Francisco non-profit headed by Jerry Mander, had conducted a two day teach-in over the weekend, and on the evening of November 30 had scheduled a debate on economic globalization and the WTO. Tickets were sold out, but I figured that many would not show up because of the mess downtown. By dark, it was rumored that a curfew had been imposed and that the National Guard were coming in. A lot of people were staying in hotels in the area, and this presented a real challenge. A light rain fell, and all the taxis and bus service had ceased. Few restaurants or bars were open. In the midst of this, hundreds gathered outside of Town Hall, waiting to be admitted, hoping to pick up a ticket, or a few that wanted to sell theirs. I was lucky to get one. The hall held a few hundred people willing to pay $10 to $20 to listen for a few hours. It was a good experience that I wished all the marchers had been exposed to. The crowd was definitely anti-WTO (as are Mander and his NGO) but for the most part they let the speakers proceed with only a few outbursts from the audience that were quickly shushed by the rest of us. In favor were David Aaron, Dept. of Commerce; Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University; and R. Scott Miller, Proctor & Gamble. Opposed were John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies; Ralph Nader, Public Citizen; and Vandana Shiva, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. On the way home, we heard stories of police forcefully pepper spraying demonstrators, and how the television stations played this clip over and over and over. As usual, the video coverage was not nuanced. One longshoreman, a long time activist, said he was most impressed with the solidarity between very diverse groups of young radicals, older labor members, and conservationists. He watched as a CBS newswoman interviewed a steelworker, and asked him how they felt about these kids who were dressed funny and had piercings. The steelworker replied that his nephew had an earring. What difference did that make? The young were there supporting the same things as he was. CBSwoman looked crestfallen, unable to provoke the man into agreeing with her superficial assessment. On Wednesday, Clinton will arrive. Castro says he is not coming, and Jose Bove seems to attracting most of the attention, although Michael Moore, director-general of the WTO, is getting pretty good press. At 7 a.m. there is a volunteer cleanup of the downtown, and dozens of other events are taking place outside the official meetings. I'll try to post in 24 hours. Steve Cisler cisler@pobox.com ==========================================================================[03]== Seattle, December 1 The groups that are still in the streets have been successful in attracting the sustained attention of visually-oriented media. What they hunger for is not the quiet, reasonable ambiance of the myriad meetings now underway. The cameras need movement, and the tape recorders need shouts and the sound of concussion grenades going off. So they are out on the streets accompanying the folks who were emboldened by their success in forcing the cancellation of meetings, of preventing the Secretary of State from reaching her destination, of causing the police to mis-calculate. Law enforcement had been training for much of the year, but they underestimated the potential for violence. Some people I spoke with believed that organized labor had made a deal with the Clinton Administration to keep all their faithful in the stadium all morning on Nov. 30, while the police handled the early marchers from PGA, various anarchist conclaves, and some younger people who were clearly out for confrontation. The newspapers indicate the police are being criticized for being too lenient and too harsh. During the second day it seemed there were more police from other jurisdictions, and they seemed armed with more plastic restraining devices, and the SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams bristled with all sorts of armaments: shiny aluminum tubes about the size of a fine Habanos cigar, fat concussion grenades, the ever popular tear gas and dispensers of pepper spray. I don't know how popular pepper spray is outside of North America. Many places have banned people from carrying it, but quite a few women own a small canister in spite of the law. I spoke with a young woman from British Columbia who used to have it. She tested it, and it blew back in her face. It is EXTREMELY painful. It is being used more freely by the government in the street battles here. Live television footage focused on police running from one citizen/demonstrator to another and spraying them, even if they were just standing in a doorway. Police have been seizing cell phones from the sit-in protestors, and they have been preventing bicycle messengers from approaching hot areas. In effect, they have been trying to degrade the communications flow of the organized protesters. Another difference on December 1 was the presence of National Guard troops. They were in cammies and carried smooth natural wood batons about one meter long. This is in contrast to the Darth Vader school of street military couture which favors black everything: boots, shin guards, pants, poncho, helmet, dark face shield, with brushed aluminum accents on the various projectiles carried around the warrior's mid-section. I did notice that all police have very legible ID numbers on their helmets and last names on their badges. I had no credentials but wanted to go to meetings on TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights) and electronic commerce. These were supposed to be open meetings in the Madison hotel, the nexus for a lot of NGO activity. I had written to Jamie Love who works for Ralph Nader, and he said, "Just come on down." However, security was very tight. I brandished my printout from the www.agitprop.org/artandrevolution web calendar, which showed the meeting was to be held at 10 a.m. It took some social engineering to get in the door, which probably would not have worked if I had been young and dressed for street action. I gave up my driver's license in order to get a temporary badge from the credentials table. I signed a form where I promised to turn in the badge within 60 minutes of the end of the meeting or lose privileges for any further meetings. The badges were not to be used for any OTHER meetings in the same building. Most of the NGOs had placed propaganda and position statement on several large tables. Doing a quick scan for more interesting titles I grabbed enough to fill my pack. Some of the publications were lavish. World Vision and the World Council of Churches must have paid a couple of dollars each for their books. Most were modest two color newsletters. >From 10-12 the TRIPS meeting run by Medecins san Frontieres (sorry, I can't figure out how to add the accents on this particular computer), Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), Health Action International, and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Webcasting and archiving online by tappedinto.com of Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the discourse was carried by Love, Carlos Correa, U. of Buenos Aires, Rep. Sherrod Brown, a democratic congressman from Ohio, Richard Wilder of the World Intellectual Property Organization, and folks from M.sans F. There was a long discussion about access to drugs (the legal, expensive kind) by countries that cannot afford the expensive licenses and dosage costs being tolerated in more developed countries. This includes drugs for AIDS, meningitis, and more basic drugs. Countries like Thailand and South Africa are being pressured into doing away with compulsory license requirement for large drug firms that want to do business in those countries (Thailand yielded to U.S. pressure; South Africa has not). It was a rather narrow and arcane discussion for some of us new to the topic, but it made me realize that decisions about intellectual property can lead to a better life or the death of those who can't afford certain medical treatment. We also touched on intellectual property and databases, but people were more interested in biopiracy, the practice of taking local resources for use in a commercial drug (without adequate compensation to the country or people in who's land the raw materials were discovered.) Ralph Nader talked about patents and the need to change the length of patents. As technology changes more rapidly the live of patents are being extended instead of shortened. The morning meeting attracted about 90 people in a room for 50. The afternoon was very different. The meeting was not well-publicized and only 8 of us met to discuss Internet issues. Trades, tariffs, ICANN, digital signatures, and U.S. business process patents. Most people knew nothing about ICANN or the other issues. Love gave good explanations of the current controversies, and I thought that in a couple of years the WTO would be re-named the W.E-T.O because of the increase in electronic trade. Most countries and many regions in industrialized nations are not ready for the effects of e-commerce. Its mounting effects will overlay on top of all the other contentious issues that are being chewed on here in Seattle. The complex issue of jurisdiction in cyberspace is a topic few people are thinking about, but it is critical to begin doing so, given the importance many people place on traditional sovereign governments what they can tax or regulate. In the late afternoon I turned in my badge, stepped through the phalanx of cops and went out on the street. More police, few demonstrators, but much more maneuvering of troops and a much more aggressive attitude in dealing with the public. After a short time at an indigenous environmental group meeting, I began walking north on Broadway. A helicopter was about 300 meters overhead, beaming a strong light on the street about one kilometer ahead of me. I was tired and just wanted to catch a bus home. On the bus stops I saw posters for "Defiance Festival, 7 p.m. Denny & Broadway. December 1). That's where I was headed. At the intersection a good deal of paper trash had been burned but was extinguished before the fire department arrived. Two SWAT vehicles were moving to a side street as about 300 demonstrators gathered. In the crafts stores, taquerias, and fine restaurants people went on consuming, as the chants grew louder and the small crowd slowly moved down Broadway. Traffic was snarled, and some drivers were not amused. A couple of demonstrators passed out paper napkins from a restaurant (in case of tear gas). Nice gesture but not very effective. A hundred or so people looked on as the activists moved toward town. I walked about 5 kilometers home because the bus service was blocked where I was, and the curfew prevented me from crossing to another area. Thursday: Food and farming. ==========================================================================[04]== Collateral Damage in Seattle Report from Portland student Jim Desyllas (posted 12-2-99) Called in at a pay phone outside Seattle.Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific time. I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting from the mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a peaceful protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was a massive, strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked repeatedly by the police with the express purpose of provoking a violent response to provide photo opportunities for the Western media. I know because I watched it happening. I'll tell you how they did it. As Michel Chossudovsky says in his "Disarming the New World Order" (See Note # 1 at end for link to that article) - the government put a lot of effort into making sure the protesters in Seattle were a "loyal opposition" who wanted to reform the WTO, not get rid of it. But the people in Seattle - American steel workers, Canadian postal workers, college kids from all over, environmentalists from Australia - you name it - were not for reforming the WTO. They were for getting rid of it. And this wasn't just true of the protesters. I interviewed delegates. None of them had anything favorable to say about the WTO. Two delegates from the Caribbean were angry about job loss. One delegate from Peru took a bullhorn and got up on a car and spoke to the protestors against the World Trade Organization. He said it hurts the workers and farmers. I interviewed a Norwegian guy from Greenpeace. Totally against it. Even a delegate from Holland said it had hurt the farmers there. He said though it is supposedly democratic, that's actually a lie: the US, England and Canada and a few others get together and decide what they want to do. Then they ask the rest of the countries to vote and if they vote wrong they threaten,"You won't get loans," or whatever. They get them to do what they want by blackmailing them. The Italians we interviewed were upset too. I couldn't find any delegates who were in favor. So the government instigated a "riot" to discredit the movement against the WTO because they couldn't dilute it. I am not guessing about this. I was there. I saw it happening. And I will tell you I am frankly shocked to see, close up, just how little our leaders care what happens to ordinary people. Clinton can pose and speak a lot of flowery stuff but the truth is - we are nothing to them. I saw this with my own eyes. Sunday and Monday, there was no violence. None. The people were aggressively non-violent; they were self-policing. Up until Tuesday at 4pm there was one window broken in the whole city - a McDonalds window. This compares favorably to the typical rock concert, let alone a demonstration of people who were non-violently barring entry to the World Trade Center! At this point, a new group of police - tactical police - moved in and started gassing people and shooting rubber bullets. Is it any surprise that people got mad? Of course, the young kids hit back by breaking some windows in retaliation for being gassed, sprayed with very painful pepper gas, and shot with dangerous "rubber" bullets. The police instigated these kids, plain and simple. Sunday and Monday they had young cops, using them to block the streets. These were trainees. But Tuesday they had the real cops; none of them were young. They were trained to attack people. A small group, maybe 100 people total, struck back. Then these cops herded that group around the city, making sure there were plenty of photo ops of "violent protesters." A number of times they had these 100 or so protesters caught between buildings and walls of police. They could easily have arrested and detained this small number of people and gotten it over with. Instead they would gas them and let them go. Then trap them again, gas them again, and again let them go. The cops made no arrests that I know of until late Tuesday night though the skirmishing was going on from three till 9:30. The cops would blockade three or five blocks of an area, give the angry kids room to operate, keep gassing them - when you gas a person, let me tell you, it gets them fighting mad. Tuesday night the police gassed all of downtown. This was going on from 3 PM, till 6 PM.. Gas everywhere. The kids broke a few windows - McD's, Starbucks - small stuff - burned a few garbage cans. The police were using these people as extras. It was staged. I believe also the police had their own people in there, encouraging people to break stuff - if people think I may be exaggerating, I saw supposed protesters - they were screaming and so on - and then later, when everything was over, the same people tackled other protestors and put handcuffs on them. At 6pm they issued a State of Emergency. At that point they had pushed the 100 people outside the city limits, so the police went outside the limits too, and they started gassing that area too, gassing the neighborhoods where the regular people live. I am not exaggerating. The police were relentless. This was in an area from the city limits for about 10 blocks to the Seattle Central Community College. If you were alive, the police gassed you. People coming back from work, kids, women, everyone. People would go out of their houses to see what was happening because these tear gas guns sound like a cannon - and they would get gassed. A block away there was a Texaco gas station - they threw tear gas at gas pumps, believe it or not - they were like vandals. They gassed a bus. I saw it with my own eyes. A bus. The driver, the riders, the people just abandoned it . I was sitting in a little coffee shop called Rauhaus, [Jim did not spell this - the spelling may be wrong.] They were shooting "rubber" bullets at the glass. I picked up a dozen of the things in a few square feet. They were also shooting this paint that you can only see with a florescent light. They would paint anyone and everyone and then go hunting them. Anyway, because they were gassing everybody, the local people got mad too and they joined the 100 who had been herded out of the city. So soon there were 500 including the neighborhood people and all very angry. Naturally. Because they had been gassed and hit with pepper spray, that stuff does a number on you. And shot with these damn bullets. Then people set up barricades at Seattle Central Community College. The cops organized themselves for about an hour and then moved in and gassed that area. Today they started mass arrests. That was because Clinton - the Greeks call him the Planitarchis, Ruler of the World - was coming. Weeping crocodile tears about how he just LOVES peaceful protest, which of course you'd have to be two years old to believe he had nothing to do with the police action. This whole thing, this police attack, this was US foreign policy, not some action decided by some bureaucrat in Seattle. This was the State Department. They wanted to discredit the people. Sunday there was a protest of solidarity involving people from different walks of life. Monday it got even bigger. Tuesday there was a big sort of carnival where people were doing different things, a band was playing music and people were blocking the World Trade Center. And about 3 PM the cops started throwing tear gas. The thing that drove Clinton crazy was that on Tuesday the protesters had succeeded in making nonviolent human chains and had therefore stopped everyone from going into the World Trade Center. Only maybe 27 delegates got through, mostly US and British. There were what seemed like tens of thousands of protesters involved. So the police did their gassing number against these nonviolent people to break up the human chains and make the protesters look violent. Today (Wednesday) I followed the union protest put together by the Longshoremen's Union. They went down to the docks and had a rally then marched to Third Avenue. As soon as they got there the cops started gassing them. There was an old lady there. She had gone downtown by bus to buy something. This lady was in her 70's and I saw her trying to run, but she couldn't breathe. She was in shock. I carried her to a building entryway. She was gasping, terrified. She had been in Germany, and it was like she was having flashbacks. The tear gas sounds like gunfire and there were helicopters overhead, sirens, cops on horses, everything. They had clearly made a decision to destroy this movement. So anyway there I was with her in this building and she wanted to go to the hospital but there was tear gas everywhere and I was afraid if I tried to move her she'd be gassed again. I went to this line of cops and begged - I mean begged - these riot police to help her. They ignored me. A girl told me later that a one year old had been gassed. And I myself saw a girl no more than 18 - a cop had busted her lip wide open - she was bleeding - and then they gassed everyone including her. After that she was kneeling on the ground crying like a baby and praying for 15 minutes, Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Over and over. She was in a state of shock. They just gassed these people who were sitting down non-violently and doing nothing. Nothing. At one point the Seattle Mayor said his boys were not using rubber bullets. Miraculously, by then I had ten in my pocket. I could open a little market, sell the things. They are everywhere. I and other people started giving them to delegates and stuff. "See what they're doing? They're shooting "rubber" bullets and lying about it." We showed them to the media. I guess enough people and the media got the information because the Mayor made a new statement then that they were using them. As if he hadn't known. They shot rubber bullets from four feet away into the face of a guy next to me, broke all his front teeth. When that happened I lost it. I forgot I was supposed to be getting the news for all of you and I started yelling at the cops, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sick, man?" So this cop aimed his gun right at me. That was his answer. So I first put my hands in front of my face because I didn't want to lose my teeth. And then I thought, to hell with it. I was wearing my target shirt that said "Collateral Damage", you know? With a bullseye target, like they wore during the bombing in Yugoslavia. And I told this guy, "Go ahead, shoot! Here! Here's the target!" He didn't shoot me. I want to emphasize, these protesters were NOT violent people. They were the most non-violent people I have ever seen. Even when I was screaming at the cop, this girl came up to me and said, "Do not scream. This is non-violent." These people were too much to believe. They must meditate all the time, I don't know. Clinton said he supports nonviolent protest. That is baloney. Today (Wed.) the protesters were causing absolutely no "trouble". In downtown the cops had people running who weren't even protesters - like that old lady or just people going to work or shopping - everyone was getting gassed. The busses weren't running because of the gas. I was lucky to catch one with a driver who could still see.. I begged him to drive the old lady home - the driver changed his route especially for her. If you want to find human decency, stay away from the Planitarchis. Go to the to regular people. They have some. The Planitarchis lost all his years ago. Now he wouldn't know human decency if it came up and bit him. So now I have made personal acquaintance with the people who run this country, and they are quite simply scum. There were people at work, people with babies, they were all getting gassed because the government would not allow an assembly of people speaking their minds. It is the same as what happened in Athens. Clinton's requirements on the Greek government created the riot and he did the same thing here. And then he says he supports nonviolent protest? How? By shooting rubber bullets? And today they outlawed gas masks. They want to make sure everyone gets his money's worth. Today, just like yesterday night, the police were in the residential neighborhoods. People in cafs were getting gassed and shot at, you could hear it on the windows, bang, bang, bang. A guy trying to cross the street to go to his house got gassed. First a drunk guy outside a bar yelled at the cops "Get out of here!" so they gassed him. And then this other guys was just crossing the street to go home so the cops figured, might as well gas him too. People got gassed for coming out of restaruants and bars and coffeee shops. I'm amazed that nobody died who had asthma or something. Or maybe somebody did die and they didn't talk about it. I mean after all, it's just collateral damage.. *** ==========================================================================[05]== Below I have forwarded a different perspective on the battle of Seattle than the one we get force-fed by the media here in North America. How has the reporting been in Europe? I received this message from another list. It originated from the Free Student Press Project. Roger Keil - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I got on a Greyhound bus in Pittsburgh at 3:00am, the morning after Thanksgiving, and traveled 2 and a half days to Seattle to join the protests against the World Trade Organization. I arrived to see tens of thousands of activists from the widest range of causes I've ever seen in one place, united around a common concern -- their desire to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, otherwise known as democracy. I won't go into the WTO in great detail. The information is out there. You can find for yourself that in the last 4 years the WTO has been in existence it has ruled against every evironmental and human health and saftey regulation that has come before it and, through economic leverage, has compelled countries to repeal these "barriers to free trade." Such barriers in this country have been the sections of the Clean Air Act and the Endagered Species Act. But I won't go into that further, instead I want to share with you what happened here, to me and thousands of others, yesterday. My friends and I woke up late Tuesday morning. One of the largest portests of the century, and we sleep in. We joined the protests at about 9:00am, and joined a human chain of people blocking one entrance to the convention center where the first day of the WTO summit was to take place. This was the scene at every street that led to the convention center. The plan was to not let delegates enter and to shut down the meeting. This may sound drastic, but the purpose was to send a message that many have phrased as "No globalization without representation." The WTO meetings are closed to the public and the WTO is not subordinant to any national government or, more importantly, and democratic body. Yet it has shown itself to have more of a say in things as basic as the quality of the air we breath than we ourselves do. To me and nearly 50,000 others, this warranted the serious direct action. However, as serious as these demonstrations were, they were to be ALL non-violent. After being part of our own barrier to free trade and turning back WTO delegates forabout an hour, we heard that protesters needed help at another intersection a few blocks away. Since there were more than enough people to keep up the barrier where we were, we left the blockade and headed for the corner of 8th and Seneca. When we arrived, we saw lots of demonstrators but no major media cameras. There was a smaller group of people sitting downon the street (which had already been closed) with police in riot gear standing behind them. Instead of the ordinary billy clubs, all of Seattle's police were holding 3 foot oak clubs that look more like basball bats than batons. When they began putting on their gas masks it became evident that they were planning to use pepper spray on the people sitting down. The rest of the crowd was pleading with the police not to use this cruel tactic. It was possible that if more people sat down, they police wouldn't spray them, so I joined that group. When it became apparent that they were going to use the spray anyway, we all locked legs and arms together and I pulled a bandana my freind had given me over my face, covering my mouth and eyes. Onlookers bgan yelling, "Get ready! They going to do it! Get ready!" I heard the spray and people began screaming in pain. I was just expecting spray, so I was pretty surprised when I felt one of those big clubs land on the top of my head. The guy behind me took most of the force from the blow, so I wasn't hurt badly. I covered my head with my arm and covered my eyes with my hand, as the screams continued and it became obvious -even though I couldn't see anything from underneath my bandana- that the cops were not only spraying but beating the people as well. A police officer then grabbed my hand and pulled it away from my face and spayed me in the eyes with a cannister of pepper spray. I held my eyes closed tight and my bandana absorbed the spray, protecting my eyes and face. I breathed a little bit of it in and began coughing. the crowd started to break up as the police continued beating people. I pulled away and stood up, pulling the bandana away from my eyes to see the police beating the few people that remained sitting. One woman was trying to get up and they kept jabbing her in the side with their clubs. The rest of the crowd pulled those people to safety and began washing their eyes with a solution of baking soda and water to counter the effects of the blinding pepper spray. This was my first experience with the spray. I got a tiny bit of the spray on my forehead and it burnt very badly, was very painful. I can't even begin to imagine the pain the people felt who got it sprayed directly into their eyes. I think I was luckier than anyone else I was sitting with, having escaped the spary and only having been clubbed once. I screamed at the cops for a while, called them facist pigs between plenty of other expletives. But when things calmed down a bit, myself and others began speaking to the police. It suddenly became evident that some of them were visibly disturbed by what they had just done. One female officer's hands were shaking as she held her club up to her chest like the rest did in the line they had formed. She kept blinking her eyes to avoid crying. We talked to other officers who wouldn't look us in the eyes, but their faces showed no signs of pleasure. After I calmed down a bit and got my emotions under contol enough to speak, I said to them, "You probably think we're just fanatics with nothing better to do, or maybe vagrants who are too lazy to be working right now, or maybe spoiled college kids who don't have to work. You can think that we're idiots who came across a few statistics on environmental degredation or sweatshops, that we're out here today to be self-righteous and think that we're better than everybody else, but we're people just like you. And everybody standing here with me knows exactly why they're here today. We're trying to make the world better. And I don't think a single one of you even knows why you're here. How many of you support the WTO? How many of you even know what it does? We know why we're here. Why the hell are you here? I don't think any of you became police officers to beat people who aren't a threat to anyone's safety. Just who do you think you're protecting? We're unarmed. None of us have tried to attack you or anyone else today. You attacked us. You aren't protecting yourselves; there's no one behind you that you're protecting -- Who do you think you're protecting!? If you have a good reason for beating us today, if you felt it was right, that's one thing. But if you didn't have any reason and you still beat these people anyway, I want you to ask yourself why you did it. Why you were willing to inflict violence on other people for no reason other than you were told to." I asked them to go home and think about that; what they did to make things better today by beating non-violent protesters; if that's what they became cops to do. They were all silent, turning they heads constantly to avoid eye contact with any of the protesters speaking. Th commanding officer walked down a line in between the police and us,pushing protesters back. He ordered the crowd to disperse, saying that if we didn't leave they would remove us by force. We didn't leave. We just kept talking to the police more. I asked the commanding officer to explain to us why we ought to leave. He didn't acknowledge the question. I asked them all if that's what those clubs meant, that they didn't have to explain their actions to anyone, even themselves. Other protesters reminded them that even though they were trained to be robots, they were still people who were responsible for their own actions -- orders or no orders. I told them my name, where I was from, that I go to college, that I have family and friends. I asked them their names. None answered. We stayed there and the police didn't charge. Not because I think we convinced them not to, but because there were too many of us. Soon a group of people with their arms chained together inside tubes wrapped in duct tape. 4 of these people were from Athens; 3 OU students and friends of mine. The police were still threatening to charge the crowd. I quickly realized that these people had no way to protect their heads from the police clubs. Being obviously violent had already proven to be no defense against police violence. Another OU student and I walked up to the police line to ask them about this. The line was now made up of different police officers. We approached one and asked him about this. He looked at us and said, "Well, if they're worried about getting hurt, they should have thought about that before they came out today." I asked him to show me his badge number. He refused. "Aren't you required to show your identification to the public?" He didn't answer. The officer to his left sneered at me and said, "Well you have all the answers, why don't you tell me?" Before I could, he raised his club and yelled at me to back up. I did and continued talking to him, but he looked away and ignored me. The first officer had no identifying number anywhere on him. No visible badge, no number on his helmet. I took his picture and got others to. Telling everybody that we needed to watch him. When I first spoke to police after they had beaten us, I was very encouraged that some had actually shown some signs of human compassion, but my hopefullness dissappeared after I talked to the latter group of officers and realized that many of them were quite happy to inflict harm on people. Reinforcements came and as protesters cleared the way for them, one cop pushed a protster, and said "Get the fuck out of my way," with a smile on his face. >From time to time ambulances would come through and the crowd would clear a path immediately. Some protesters said, "What if WTO delegates are sneeking in on the ambulances?" But people came to an immediate concensus that, although that was a possiblity, it wasn't worth risking people's safety. Suddenly, a WTO delegate made it unnoticed through our lines. But when he made it to police they refused to let him enter. They turned back another delegate later. As it turned out, we were gaurding an exit not an entrance; that they police's orders were to not let anyone in -- whoever they were. Also, since police had shut down the street and no protesters had attempted to cross police lines, none of us were even doing anything illegal. -- which is probably why none of the people in the sit-down group were arrested. Though none of us were arrested, all of us were beaten and sprayed. Word soon made it to us that the situation was worse elsewhere. We made our way to the heart of downtown and found the streets full of teargas. There was a large group of people sitting down in front of police in full riot gear with their gas masks on. Behind them was an armored tank. They police attacked protesters again. Against non-violent protesters, they used pepper spray, clubs, tear gas, and later fired rubber bullets and marbles at the people. In every single instance I witnessed first hand, police violently attacked non-violent protesters with no provocation whatsoever. That was the case when I was beaten and sprayed, that was the case when downtown was flooded with gas, with helicopters flying overhead shining spotlights down into the crowd. Thousands of police forced protesters out of the dowtown area firing cannister after cannister of tear gas into the crowd. My friends and I were split up in the crowd of people fleeing from the gas. eventually, I made it back to the house to join them. The whole way to their house, I was hoping that this story would get out. Hoping that the level of violence inflicted on non-violent protesters, peacefully assembled, would wake a lot of people up and show them the level of democracy in this country. Hoping that people would see what the level of force aimed at people who peacefully oppose the interests that are dominant in this country and the world. I returned home to have this hope crushed. The local news stations were reporting on the broken windows of businesses and not the broken bones of protesters. They reported on things like "police fatigue." Which I assume is when your arms get tired after you beat people for hours. They talked -and continue to talk about- the extremely "restraint, openmindedness, and gentleness" displayed by police. A state of civil emergency was declared and a curfew was set for 7pm. If anyone was downtown after that, they would be arrested. Police cleared the curfew zone of people, but we watched them on TV continued to pursue them up Capitol Hill -- blocks past the curfew zone. The police chased them into a business area and fired tear gas into crowds that were now made up of shoppers and people getting dinner as well as protesters. Finally, after 12 hours of people being beaten and gased, a small riot broke out. A Starbucks coffee store was damaged and looted. I'm amazed it took this long to happen, and I say this in all honesty from being here first hand, that, by repeatedly attacking and torturing non-violent protesters, the Seattle police sought to incite a riot and finally succeeded to a small degree. The news kept running the scene of Starbucks being looted again, and again, and again. At least a dozen times in under an hour. There were also quick clips of police beating demostrators shown once and not again. A newscaster on KOMO, channel 4, said, "Look, earlier today we saw protesters carrying signs with clear messages against the WTO, but what you have going on now is an unruly mob just trying to cause problems. In the pictures we're seeing now, I don't see any signs at all. These people don't have any message." What the newscaster failed to notice was that people,myself included, dropped their signs when they were fleeing for their lives. They were dropped because you need two hands to gaurd your eyes from tears gas. Talk of the "police being too lenient" has continued into todays news reports. And the lack of signs continues to be portrayed as a lack of any constuctive purpose among the protesters. One newscaster said, "Come on, get a life. We live in a prosperous country." In all honesty, the news is scaring me more than the riot police, because what it has done is justify further violence against the protesters. They have said that "police have been too lenient." The police have used teargas, pepper spary, clubs, rubber bullets, and marbles against peaceful civilians in downtown Seattle. The only thing they haven't done is used live amunition. And in the event that greater violence occurs against protesters, the media will have justified it. Besides insulting protesters the local media has focused on the diruption to traffic and holiday shopping. The National Guard is now occupying the city, a 50 block "no protest" zone has been established, about 120 people have been arrested, and many have been hospitalized -- though that has recieved no coverage as far as I've seen. In other news, we succeeded in shutting down the first day of WTO meetings. The situation is still developing, so I encourage everyone to watch the news coverage and contrast it to what I've written here. AND PLEASE, do your own research on the WTO. -Damon Krane ==========================================================================[06]== N30 Black Bloc Communique by ACME Collective 10:48am Sat Dec 4 '99 Source: http://www.indymedia.org Article: http://216.173.206.96/display.php3?article_id=508 A communique from one section of the black bloc of N30 in Seattle On November 30, several groups of individuals in black bloc attacked various corporate targets in downtown Seattle. Among them were (to name just a few): Fidelity Investment (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane of the U'wa tribe in Columbia) Bank of America, US Bancorp, Key Bank and Washington Mutual Bank (financial institutions key in the expansion of corporate repression) Old Navy, Banana Republic and the GAP (as Fisher family businesses, rapers of Northwest forest lands and sweatshop laborers) NikeTown and Levi's (whose overpriced products are made in sweatshops) McDonald's (slave-wage fast-food peddlers responsible for destruction of tropical rainforests for grazing land and slaughter of animals) Starbucks (peddlers of an addictive substance whose products are harvested at below-poverty wages by farmers who are forced to destroy their own forests in the process) Warner Bros. (media monopolists) Planet Hollywood (for being Planet Hollywood) This activity lasted for over 5 hours and involved the breaking of storefront windows and doors and defacing of facades. Slingshots, newspaper boxes, sledge hammers, mallets, crowbars and nail-pullers were used to strategically destroy corporate property and gain access (one of the three targeted Starbucks and Niketown were looted). Eggs filled with glass etching solution, paint-balls and spray-paint were also used. The black bloc was a loosely organized cluster of affinity groups and individuals who roamed around downtown, pulled this way by a vulnerable and significant storefront and that way by the sight of a police formation. Unlike the vast majority of activists who were pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed and shot at with rubber bullets on several occasions, most of our section of the black bloc escaped serious injury by remaining constantly in motion and avoiding engagement with the police. We buddied up, kept tight and watched each others' backs. Those attacked by federal thugs were un-arrested by quick-thinking and organized members of the black bloc. The sense of solidarity was awe-inspiring. THE PEACE POLICE Unfortunately, the presence and persistence of "peace police" was quite disturbing. On at least 6 separate occasions, so-called "non-violent" activists physically attacked individuals who targeted corporate property. Some even went so far as to stand in front of the Niketown super store and tackle and shove the black bloc away. Indeed, such self-described "peace-keepers" posed a much greater threat to individuals in the black bloc than the notoriously violent uniformed "peace-keepers" sanctioned by the state (undercover officers have even used the cover of the activist peace-keepers to ambush those who engage in corporate property destruction). RESPONSE TO THE BLACK BLOC Response to the black bloc has highlighted some of the contradictions and internal oppressions of the "nonviolent activist" community. Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of those who engaged in violence against black-clad and masked people (many of whom were harassed despite the fact that they never engaged in property destruction), there is the racism of privileged activists who can afford to ignore the violence perpetrated against the bulk of society and the natural world in the name of private property rights. Window-smashing has engaged and inspired many of the most oppressed members of Seattle's community more than any giant puppets or sea turtle costumes ever could (not to disparage the effectiveness of those tools in other communities). TEN MYTHS ABOUT THE BLACK BLOC Here's a little something to dispel the myths that have been circulating about the N30 black bloc: 1. "They are all a bunch of Eugene anarchists." While a few may be anarchists from Eugene, we hail from all over the United States, including Seattle. In any case, most of us are familiar with local issues in Seattle (for instance, the recent occupation of downtown by some of the most nefarious of multinational retailers). 2. "They are all followers of John Zerzan." A lot of rumors have been circulating that we are followers of John Zerzan, an anarcho-primitivist author from Eugene who advocates property destruction. While some of us may appreciate his writings and analyses, he is in no sense our leader, directly, indirectly, philosophically or otherwise. 3. "The mass public squat is the headquarters of the anarchists who destroyed property on November 30th." In reality, most of the people in the "Autonomous Zone" squat are residents of Seattle who have spent most of their time since its opening on the 28th in the squat. While they may know of one-another, the two groups are not co-extensive and in no case could the squat be considered the headquarters of people who destroyed property. 4. "They escalated situations on the 30th, leading to the tear-gassing of passive, non-violent protesters." To answer this, we need only note that tear-gassing, pepper-spraying and the shooting of rubber bullets all began before the black blocs (as far as we know) started engaging in property destruction. In addition, we must resist the tendency to establish a causal relationship between police repression and protest in any form, whether it involved property destruction or not. The police are charged with protecting the interests of the wealthy few and the blame for the violence cannot be placed upon those who protest those interests. 5. Conversely: "They acted in response to the police repression." While this might be a more positive representation of the black bloc, it is nevertheless false. We refuse to be misconstrued as a purely reactionary force. While the logic of the black bloc may not make sense to some, it is in any case a pro-active logic. 6. "They are a bunch of angry adolescent boys." Aside from the fact that it belies a disturbing ageism and sexism, it is false. Property destruction is not merely macho rabble-rousing or testosterone-laden angst release. Nor is it displaced and reactionary anger. It is strategically and specifically targeted direct action against corporate interests. 7. "They just want to fight." This is pretty absurd, and it conveniently ignores the eagerness of "peace police" to fight us. Of all the groups engaging in direct action, the black bloc was perhaps the least interested in engaging the authorities and we certainly had no interest in fighting with other anti-WTO activists (despite some rather strong disagreements over tactics). 8. "They are a chaotic, disorganized and opportunistic mob." While many of us could surely spend days arguing over what "chaotic" means, we were certainly not disorganized. The organization may have been fluid and dynamic, but it was tight. As for the charge of opportunism, it would be hard to imagine who of the thousands in attendance _didn't_ take advantage of the opportunity created in Seattle to advance their agenda. The question becomes, then, whether or not we helped create that opportunity and most of us certainly did (which leads us to the next myth): 9. "They don't know the issues" or "they aren't activists who've been working on this." While we may not be professional activists, we've all been working on this convergence in Seattle for months. Some of us did work in our home-towns and others came to Seattle months in advance to work on it. To be sure, we were responsible for many hundreds of people who came out on the streets on the 30th, only a very small minority of which had anything to do with the black bloc. Most of us have been studying the effects of the global economy, genetic engineering, resource extraction, transportation, labor practices, elimination of indigenous autonomy, animal rights and human rights and we've been doing activism on these issues for many years. We are neither ill-informed nor unexperienced. ==========================================================================[07]== PADUA Friday 26 A peaceful demo in front of the GMO Exhibition "Bionova" -- attended by the top managers of GMO companies -- was wildly attacked by the police, twice (see my previous report on Nov. 26). MILAN Saturday 27 A large number of people from the anarchist/ Social Centers area joins a grassroot trade union demonstration (not about n30) and gives it a strong anti-globalization character, sensibilizing the workers at the demo about the dangers of speculative "free" trade and about the "Valzer round" in Seattle. The idea is quite successful, and workers and squatters are -- for once -- again united against WTO. Meanwhile, a group of "White Coveralls" (direct action group from the zapatist/ social centers area) occupied the first and foremost McDonald's in Milan, in piazza S. Babila, locking themselves on the building facade, hanging enormous banners which denounced neoliberism and its effects and distributing flyers to the amused passers-by in the irrealistic scenario created by the music of the "Banda degli ottoni a scoppio", a squatter music band playing popular music. The action, undisturbed by the police, lasted a couple of hours and ended when the grassroot trade union demo entered the San Babila square. Then, in a sort of triumph, one representative of the White Coveralls spoke to the demonstrants. After that, the White Coveralls showed up in the city-wide meeting for the closure of the prison camps for migrants, which was going on at the same time, with a wide McDonald banner hanged upside down to symbolize the non-food served by this multinational of rubbish food. Monday 29 Students of the new University "La Bicocca" occupy the faculty of "Biological Sciences" to protest against WTO and biotech food. Tuesday 30 Permanent info tend in Largo Cairoli, a very central square, to inform the citizens about WTO and the reasons of our protests against it -- but also about the Narmada and Iloitz dams, the prison camps for migrants, etc. The day ended up with a debate at the Social Center Leoncavallo with the partecipation of Andres Barreda Marin, professor at the UNAM University in Mexico City, which spoke about the influences of USA economy on globalization and on the situation in Chiapas. The debate was attended by about 150 peoples. ROME 30 November A group of White Coveralls occupied the HQ of the "National Committee for Biosafety", hanging banners against GMOs and WTO. The action was promoted by Social Centers and grassroot unions. That's all for the moment, but hopefully tomorrow there will be more news. Keep on trucking Giuliano ==========================================================================[08]== LONDON WAKES UP TO GLOBAL ACTION In an action designed to raise awareness of capitalism and the WTO, around fifty people gathered in and around Euston station at 9:30am to begin distributing leaflets and stickers to passers-by. Previous to their arrival the concorse had already been staked out by dozens of police teams and even more media. The assembled crowd was later joined by small autonomous groups from other areas of London, and continued to hand out large amounts of information. CONSTRUCTION WORKERS SAY NO2WTO At 12pm the Construction Safety Campaign held a demonstration outside the Canadian Embassy (Canada House) on Trafalgar Square. The construction workers and their supporters were protesting at Canada's attmpt to use the WTO to reverse the decision by several EU countries to ban asbestos use. Under WTO rules on this is seen as a barrier to free trade. Here in the UK, the Institute for Cancer Research expects the current numbers of asbestos related cancers to double in the next ten years. Like the previous action, the protesters were accompanied by large numbers of police and journalists, and the event passed off peacefully. Following the demonstration the crowd marched past Downing Street while others briefly blockaded Oxford Street in a sit down protest. STUDENTS TARGET CITYBANK The Lewisham branch of Citybank was picketed throughout the afternoon by a small group of students. The bank is one of the major holders of students loan debt. The global trend to underfund and privatise services that accompanies the expansion of free trade has hit education in the UK, with student grants being scrapped in favour of personal loans. The latest round of trade talks threaten to expand this trend throughout health and transport. NIGERIANS PUT THEIR PRESIDENT AND SHELL ON TRIAL President Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mark Moody-Stuart, of Royal-Dutch/Shell faced a people's court in London to answer a number of charges relating to human rights abuses and environmental devastation in the Niger Delta. This piece of street theatre was performed by Nigerians exiles and British environmental activists outside the Magistrates Court in Covent Garden at 2:30pm Others from different campaigns had also attended to show solidarity. ****LINK!!!**** RALLY AT EUSTON STATION Nearly two thousand people gathered at Euston station at 5pm for a rally jointly organised by Reclaim the Streets and the London Strike Support Group designed to highlight the links between the free trade agenda of the WTO and the privatisation of public transport in UK. The event was endorsed by the London Transport Council of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), whose speaker detailed the opposition to Tube privitisation and the real concerns for safety should it go ahead. As banners were hung the rythms of a samba band mixed with speeches from representatives of various campaigning groups. Although the main focus of the rally was transport, there were also speakers covering a wide array of issues linked to the WTO and the system it governs. Genetic Engineering Network illustrated how free trade rules make impossible for people to choose what they eat, putting them in the hands of corporations that push GMO's down their throats. A speaker from Voices in the Wilderness criticised the British and American governments for maintaining heavy economic sanctions against Iraq. The group openly break sanctions to take medical supplies to Iraq, where it is widely accepted the sanctions are causing severe shortages of food and medicines killing thousands, particularly children. Campaign Against the Arms Trade highlighted the links between politicians and the global arms market. While admitting it was not the WTO that controlled the worlds arms production, the speaker went on to place the blame for the worlds conflicts on companies like the UK's GEC Marconi, the labour government's so called ethical arms policy, and the inherent greed for profit that places money before lives. There was also support for the plight of American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, in death row since 1982 as a result of a thorougly rigged trial in which he was convicted of shooting a Philadelphia policeman. A former member of the Black Panthers and the environmental-anarchist community MOVE, he is widely considered a political prisoner. Talking from Reclaim The Streets another speaker urged the importance of placing the WTO in the context of capitalism and its effects, and cited the growing nature of international solidarity and protest. One of the final speakers called on people to 'Reclaim Mayday' in the year 2000 as part of global day of action. As advertised the speeches ended at 7pm to resounding cheers with a final speaker congratulating everyone on a successful day and remarkable gathering of issues. RIOT AT EUSTON STATION At around the same time as the first reports of police violence in Seattle arrived to London, part of the crowd that had been previously attending the rally at Euston station made an attempt to walk into one of the main traffic arteries in the capital. Although the whole area was surrounded by police, protesters were directly met by a small number of police officers and a confrontation erupted. Police were initially driven back but a line of officers in riot gear rapidly formed and a series of charges and skirmishes on both directions ensued. There were diverse opinions among the protesters about the right course to follow, many openly calling to pro-activelly confront the authorities while others opted for passive resistance and some for withdrawal. A small group of protesters switched their attention to an unmarked police van and proceeded to turn it over, to a mixture of booing and cheering from fellow protesters. In the following half hour there were several attempts to set the van on fire which on some occasions were thwarted by other demonstrators. Finally, the van caught fire and was surrounded by around 30 photographers, at which moment police decided to clear the station parade in perfectly structured lines. The van had been left isolated and unattended near the crowd for several hours, with 12ft metal poles attached to its top, in a remarkable flaw of police organisation. Most of the protestors left the area by 8pm while around 500 people, roughly divided in three groups, continued to clash with police,. The first group was driven towards King's Cross, with several unsuccessful attempts to blockade the road by sitting down. They were finally dispersed after 9pm. A second, smaller, group stayed dancing in front of police lines in Eversholt street and gradually disappeared. The third group was less fortunate and, after some heated physical confrontation, was completely surrounded by a triple line of riot police who identified and photographed all of them before their release. The area was completely clear between 12 and 1am. The latest reports speak of 38 arrests, 4 of them in connection with the carnival in the City of London on J18, and 7 casualties of diverse type, including a policeman with spinal injuries, none of them life-threatening. Road traffic and public transport were severely disrupted by the events. PIRATE RADIO BLOCKS YUPPY RADIO Interference FM, the pirate radio collective that broadcasted all over London on J18, repeated their feat in protest at the commoditisation of the airwaves. They managed to transmit on the frequency of Millenium FM 106.9. This commercial broadcaster prides itself in targeting an A1 audience, those with the highest purchasing power, and fuels values based on greed and profit. The pirates were taken off air at around 4pm in a large operation by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), responsible for enforcing the state control of radio and TV transmissions. ==========================================================================[09]== A few things about last night…. I turned up around half 5 at Euston and this is what I saw + felt. About 1000 people in Euston Square listening to political speeches. Tons of journalists looking for stories. Railtrack offices heavily guarded. Lots of police taking pictures of anyone scarfed-up. I felt disappointed by the structure of it all. After the street parties, it seemed to have leaped back to the "slogan-slogan-key-speaker-with megaphone" kind of demo. So when about half the people decided to move out of the square I went along. We were met by a police charge, which came in heavy and sudden. No on was to leave for the street. It followed half an hour or so of charges and counter-charges, with the usual arguments between people who wanted everybody to passively sit down and others who wanted to stand up and fight. People alternated between the two positions, except for the cops of course, who charged at all times. They then cordoned off the crowd. I later found out they split the demo in 3 groups. An emty police van was trapped in the middle of the crowd and it got rocked on its side and set fire to. The cops let it happen and when the flames subsided moved in and squashed the whole crowd more and more. No one was allowed to leave and the situation just stalled for an hour or so, with the cops closing in more and more and increasing in number. Attempts to walk out en masse failed by lack of determination and planning I guess. The cops then filtered out and snatched out the people one by one, arresting all those identified and widely filmed during the clashes and the burn. A few managed to change their clothes and sneak out but I've read this morning that at least 40 peoples were detained. Now, I am not a fan of conspiracy theory but the more I think about that van the more I think it was a bait. Things I noticed: It was the only van inside the perimeter of Euston station. All others were outside. It was the only blue van, all other were police's Why was it abandoned when it could have been driven off at any point. It was way away from the charges. Also, did anyone notice 2 big guys dressed in suits, with masks, baseball caps and sunglasses on? They looked like a caricature of J18 protesters as portrayed by the media. This 2 guys were shouting at people to get in there, burn the van, bottle the pigs. Confronted by the crowd they mumbled something and then legged it. Again, I never really believed in agent provocateurs, but who were they? Clumsy fascists? Journalists? Coppers? ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 1999 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org