KPLU Local News
(2009-11-24)
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They came to challenge an organization they saw as the face of a global economic system that threatened their livelihoods, their communities and the natural world. But the protesters weren't all singing from the same hymnal. During the five-day conference, labor unions organized a permitted protest march to voice their fear that the WTO was setting up trade rules that ignored worker's rights.
Activists from a wide range of groups saw globalization as exploiting people and pillaging the planet. They planned what they called "direct action": non-violent civil disobedience to disrupt the conference.
"We're ready to go to jail for it, ready to face police clubs for it," said one man who helped block a downtown intersection. "We're gonna shut them down, turn this system upside down and get people back in control."
And a small but dedicated group of self-described anarchists came to trash the symbols of what they saw as a tyrannical economic order.
On the second day of the conference, thousands of demonstrators got up before dawn to take possession of more than a dozen intersections surrounding the Washington State Convention Center, where the WTO meetings were to be held. The crowd roamed the streets, chanting, singing, drumming. I saw lots of big puppets and colorful costumes.
Protest marshals in blue armbands lined people up for the planned civil disobedience.
In some intersections, groups of protesters locked themselves together to make it hard for the police to remove them.
Police in riot gear formed a cordon around the Convention Center.
Outside the police lines, protesters made a human chain to keep WTO delegates from getting to the conference.
By late morning, barely a handful of delegates had been able to get through, and the official opening ceremony was called off. City officials were overwhelmed. They had nowhere near the manpower for the orderly arrest and removal of the thousands of protesters.
Meanwhile, the permitted labor march brought an estimated 30,000 more demonstrators to downtown streets that were already jammed shut. Angry federal officials pressured the city to do something to get the conference back on track. Police brass ordered the use of tear gas and pepper spray to clear the streets.
Small bands of masked anarchists dressed in black went on a rampage. On our nightly WTO report, KPLU reporter Robert Tynes described what he saw.
"Glass was flying as several demonstrators bashed in storefront windows. They were dressed all in black, their faces completely covered. The group of about 30 started their destruction by popping tires and spray painting anarchy symbols on police cars."
Mayor Paul Schell declared a state of emergency, with a nighttime curfew and a 50 square block "no-protest" zone.
Over the next few days, the action in the streets gradually diminished as police reinforcements rolled in from around the region. But the issues that had brought tens of thousands to Seattle to oppose globalization continued to be hotly discussed.
Ralph Nader spoke before a gathering of about 1,500 small-farm activists at the United Methodist Church downtown.
"This is corporate-managed trade," he told the cheering crowd. "Created by the corporations, promoted by the corporations, and implemented through governments that the corporations have turned against their own people."
Dramatic changes in agricultural policy were at the top of the WTO's agenda, and conflicts over farming and food echoed the tensions playing out in other area of international trade.
One panelist who shared the stage with Nader -- Bangladeshi author Farhad Mazhar - condemned the WTO goal of ending farm subsidies. He said small farmers in developing countries should not be placed at the mercy of a global free market.
"It is time for us to say to everyone, that agriculture is not a sector of industrial production," he said. "It is a way of life. And it is not negotiable."
President Bill Clinton didn't see it that way. He told a group of American farmers in Seattle that everyone would prosper by removing trade barriers.
"We just want agriculture to be treated as fairly as any other sector of the global economy," he said. "Whether an apple farmer in the Cascades or a banana farmer in Cameroon, any farmer deserves a chance to compete."
At the end of the week, the conference ended in stalemate. The drama in the streets in some ways reflected the ongoing frictions within the WTO, between the rich industrialized countries and poorer countries who fear they'll be left behind.
Over the past decade, the world has continued to struggle with forming a free and fair global market. And the issues raised in Seattle have left a permanent mark on that debate.
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