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SEVEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE CORPORATE WORLD AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF SEATTLEIt started quietly enough on the Sunday with a few hundred people demonstrating outside The Gap over the sweatshop conditions workers have to endure to produce the company's clothes. Then on the Monday there was a demonstration by the turtle posse pointing out how the WTO had ruled America's Endangered Species Act illegal. Later, French national hero Jose Bove, who recently demolished McDonald's, demonstrated outside his favourite store as a protest against US sanctions on French cheese. Things were hotting up. The last thing the US President must have expected was to be flying into a city under a state of emergency with the National Guard on the streets. "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."
TUESDAYTuesday morning and already thousands are on the streets blocking roads and stopping delegates from getting into the WTO Conference centre. The opening ceremony is abandoned and talks delayed for more than five hours. Around 10 am we have a taste of what's to come as riot cops, with three-foot clubs and dressed like Darth Vader, start spraying CS gas into the faces of people peacefully blocking the roads. One man commented, "When the gas masks came out we knew they were planning to use pepper spray on the people sitting down. The crowd was pleading with them. We locked legs and arms and I pulled a bandanna over my face, covering my mouth and eyes. People began screaming in pain. I felt a blow from a club, the cops were beating people as well. A police officer pulled my hand away from my face and pepper-sprayed me in the eyes. The rest of the crowd pulled 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." By midday 30,000 trade unionists joined the demonstrations. "I'm not a trade barrier" reads the marching turtles' banner. Giant puppets weave their way down the streets, superheroes slide round corners, cloaks flying, a group of Father Christmases march along waving at the crowd, doubling over with laughter, "WTO? Ho, ho, ho." A Reclaim The Streets sound system blasts out funk, rappers rhyming "WTO, it's gotta go". SchNEWS meet Mexican, Indian and French farmers, Tibetan refugees, steelworkers, striking cabbies, anti logging and deforestation protesters, all experts on the WTO, its power and its direct repercussions on their lives. These people are no random mob. They have gathered from all over the world to be heard and no matter how many issues are at stake here they speak with one voice, united in their opposition to an institution which has no respect for the ordinary people of the world. They are calling for an end to sweatshops, to child labour and the erosion of environmental lows and the third world debt. These people are well informed, well organised and determined. As one Labour correspondent put it, "Ten years ago, who would have thought that Teamsters and kids in dreadlocks would be marching together, let alone under the banner of 'fair trade'?" "I never got on with environmentalists until I realised we were all fighting for the same thing," said Dan Petrowski, a Michigan steelworker who was made redundant four months ago. Still, what did that matter to the police who lost patience with the crowd, spraying them with jets of gas like water cannons again and again? Meanwhile, groups of anarchists went shopping. McDonald's, Niketown, Gap, Starbucks and the American Bank all had their windows smashed. One man from the U.K. told SchNEWS, "Even as a pacifist I was pleased. No-one was hurt, It seemed trivial in comparison to the scenes I had witnessed earlier. This wasn't violence against people, it was violence against the property of some of the world's most hated multinationals." As early evening approached with the crowds remaining on the streets, and the Clinton administration leaning on the mayor to do something quick, the National Guard were called out for the first time in Seattle in modern times. A no-protest zone and a 12-hour curfew were placed in the downtown area - the first time since the Second World War. This seemed to be the signal for the robo-cops to unleash an arsenal of weapons against anyone who got in their way for the next 24 hours. SchNEWS is used to a bit of argybargy with the police but this was something else.
BUTT-PLUGGIN IN THE USA"Hey! Check it out - these motherfuckers are firing butt-plugs at us," called out one grinning member of the crowd brandishing a two by four inch rubber bullet. As night drew in the forces of darkness began pushing people into the city's bohemian/gay district, the Capitol Hill residential area. This was way out of the no-protest zone, and it infuriated locals who came out of the streets in their hundreds. Seattle Gay News takes up the story. "Numerous accounts from witnesses all describe excessive force by police who appeared to have no real reason to be on Capitol Hill. The area is outside of the curfew and no-protest zones. One resident told us, 'I haven't been marching, but when the cops turn your neighbourhood into a war zone, it's time to get involved."
WEDNESDAYEarly morning and the mass arrests begin. If yesterday's show of force by the authorities was meant to scare people from demonstrating then they were mistaken. Thousands of people are regrouping at a steelworkers rally. People grow restless at the speeches and start leaving for the no-protest zone. "Whose streets? Our streets" everyone chants. One man explained to SchNEWS what happened next. "Eventually we were pushed onto the main road with shoppers, protesters, cars, buses. They're not going to gas us here, are they? I thought. A second later an explosion followed by a barrage of plastic bullets, gas, pepper spray, concussion grenades. Mental. People sitting in their cars were gassed, people leaving work. Everyone." The police say they are using non-lethal weapons but one man reports listening to a local radio station when a man calls in weeping - his wife had been attacked by the police while leaving work and she lost their child - she was four months pregnant. A doctor blamed this on the gas. It's getting scary, the town centre is emptying of people as the curfew approaches. The police are roaming around everywhere, kitted out in the most bizarre Storm-trooper-meets-Ninja-Turtle outfits and riding everything from bicycles to a huge tank-like thing, inappropriately named the Peacekeeper. If you aren't falling head over heels with laughter, your legs are being shot out from under you by rubber bullets!
THURSDAYResidents and students march, chanting, from Capitol Hill to join a farmers rally. "Ain't no power like the power of the people 'cos the power of the people don't stop". Thousands then march towards the County Jail where hundreds of protesters are being held, most not giving even their names. The jail is surrounded by people holding hands. A Temporary Autonomous Zone is established as people keep vigil, sleeping, eating, making music and speeches demanding the release of our brothers and sistas. A party evolves outside the jail as people drum, sing, juggle and dance, chanting "This is what democracy looks like". At the windows we can see the silhouettes of prisoners arms waving as they dance in solidarity.
FRIDAY EVENINGThese people just don't give up. A couple of hundred have gathered at the Westin Hotel to support some people who have d-locked themselves to the hotel's entrance.
It's here that SchNEWS hears the news - the talks have collapsed. There
will be no millennium round. It doesn't quite sink in. Inside the Conference centre, the delegates from the poorer countries complained that they were being sidelined, while the world's elite held secret "green room discussions". Most of the world's poorest countries hove neither the capacity nor the means to implement even the previous round of talks which finished five years ago, let alone take on board a whole new round of negotiations, and couldn't even afford to have a permanent
representative in Geneva where the rolling talks are held. (30 countries couldn't even afford to send delegates to Seattle!)
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CONTENTS
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THE SEATTLE POLICE ARSENALUS military standard M4OA1 double canister gas masks; uncalibrated, semi-automatic, high velocity Autocockers loaded with solid plastic shot; Monadnock disposable plastic cuffs; Nomex slash-resistant gloves; Commando boots; Centurion tactical leg guards; combat harnesses; DK5-H pivot-and-lock riot face shields; black Monadnock P24 polycarbonate riot batons with TrumBull stop side handles; No.2 continuous discharge CS (ortochlorobenzylidene-malononitrile) chemical grenades; M651 CN (chloroacetophenone) pyrotechnic grenades; T16 Flameless OC Expulsion Grenades; DTCA rubber bullet grenades (Stingers); W203 (40mm) grenade launchers; First Defense MK-46 Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) aerosol tanks with hose and wands; .60 calibre rubber ball impact munitions; lightweight tactical Kevlar composite ballistic helmets; combat butt packs; 30 cal. thirty-round mag pouches; Kevlar body armour. |
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