Jaajef G-L,
Following is another e-mail from seattle:
Yeenduleen ak jaama
Tony
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "Joshua Miner" <[log in to unmask]>
Yesterday (Tuesday) was a day of overwhelmingly
successful
protest, direct action and marches, almost entirely
non-violent. The
day began with a mass direct action to prevent the
meeting from
getting started and from taking place at all. 15,000
or so formed a
giant human chain that completely surrounded the
Seattle
convention center (site of the meetings) and the
Paramount theater
(site of the opening ceremonies). Both had to be
canceled (I heard
figures that essentially no one got into the meeting,
and only about
5-10% got into the opening ceremony).
The direct action protesters notified the Seattle
Police Department
(SPD) that our intentions were to 1) shut down the
meeting, and 2)
to symbolically demand entrance to the meetings
by committing
acts of civil disobedience. SPD informed us (I
should mention here
that I was on the front lines from the beginning with
the rest of the
protesters) that they were not deployed in such a
way to allow us
to risk arrest safely (basically, there were so many
of us and so
few of them that we would have overwhelmed them,
even in our
planned groups of 3-5, and would have risked
being assaulted). We
collectively agreed not to commit civil
disobedience (something
that I haven't seen reported anywhere) and
concentrated in
preventing access to the official meeting.
All was going very well and non-violently and
amazingly
successfully until SPD made the decision to
attempt to disrupt our
action to allow delegates access to the meeting.
SPD tear-gassed
and pepper-sprayed and shot (with rubber bullets)
non-violent
protesters who had taken over intersections in an
orderly manner.
This caused most of the protesters to either fall
back (many of us
just couldn't handle the violent police behavior) or to
sit down in the
middle of intersections in resistance. SPD, having
"secured" some
areas, fell back and left a large number of
confused, hurt and
sacred protesters unsure of what to do.
During this first gassing, the 50,000-plus strong
AFL-CIO/Sierra
Club/student/indigenous people/small
farmer/radical
feminist/vegan/human rights/free mumia/etc., etc.
march was going
on (there were many union members, but the march
was very at
the same time, with strong support from all arenas;
something that
seems left out of mainstream coverage). As a
result, the downtown
area filled up with many bystanders out to see the
march, including
shoppers and delegates who had been locked out.
It was these
circumstances (initial and unprovoked police
violence, followed by
SPD retreat and relative disorderly confusion,
bordering on chaos)
that led to the property destruction, looting and
vandalism.
The rest I'm sure everyone saw on CBS, including
the martial law
and curfew declared by the mayor of Seattle.
Today (Wednesday) began early again, with far
fewer people.
Some began by trying to clean up the downtown
area; scrubbing
grafitti and sweeping. But, it quickly became
obvious that where
yesterday SPD began with a policy of containment
and then
resorted to violence, today they were beginning
with mass arrests
and a violent crack-down on any protests. Many
small groups
walking downtown on their way to protest were
arrested for "illegal
assembly" (protesters right to assemble and
free-speech were
violated consistently throughout the day). Once a
critical mass of
people found each other and began marching, we
were immediately
confronted by SPD and hearded into a downtown
square, where we
were surrounded and where the day's first act of
civil disobedience
took place. About 100 protesters were arrested.
They resisted non-
violently and sang songs. Interestingly, SPD initially
excluded the
ss to the arrest area.
Things continued in this vain for the next few hours;
spontaneous
bursts of protest, met by immediate police
response. At one point,
in front of me, an International Forum on
Globalization researcher
(Victor Manati) who works specifically on forest
trade issues and
was inside the trade meeting as an NGO observer,
came out to the
street to inform the crowd of what was going on
inside and was
attacked by plainclothes officers and SPD riot
police, arrested and
charged with inciting a riot.
The steelworkers had scheduled a march and rally
for the early
afternoon (rumor has it that they were the only
group whose march
was allowed to go on as planned), and the rally was
attended by
almost every protester. The Seattle docks, where
the rally took
place, was the only place in Seattle where I didn't
see or feel a
massive police presence. As the rally broke up, a
large number of
students and other non-union protesters (along with
a number of
steelworkers) began marching to downtown. Along
the way, in an
amazing celebration and convergence (probably
the single most
exciting occurance thus far for me), the body of the
union rally met
and joined the younger direct-action protesters and
we all headed
for downtown.
Almost immediately, SPD, in full riot gear headed
us off and began
firing gas, pepper spray bombs and concussion
grenades directly
into the group of people (easily 2-5,000). I cannot
stress enough
that we were absolutely non-violent, that SPD was
unprovoked, and
that there were no warnings. I felt like we were
under attack. I was
also shocked at how much the gas and pepper
spray and
concussion grenades totally incapacitated me and
everyone else at
the front of the march. While SPD was firing, they
also began to
move in on us, dividing the group up and chasing
us down the
streets. It was all we could do to avoid panic and to
try and walk
away, through the gas and utter confusion.
SPD chased us for 8 blocks or so, gassing and
bombing us the
entire way. Many of us finally took refuge in the Pike
Street Public
Market, but most just fled (justifiably). Since that
time (around
4pm), SPD has continued to attack peaceful
protesters, many of
whom have sit down and taken over intersections
and who intend to
break the curfew tonight that we all feel is
repressive and
unconstitutional.
Yesterday's protests were massive, coordinated,
successful and,
by and large, non-violent. Today's protests were
less massive (still
quite large), sporadically and spontaneously
coordinated, totally
repressed and attacked by SPD, and of
undetermined success.
The violence both days was absolutely instigated
by an out of
control and horribly repressive police force.
Wednesday's activities
were marred by huge amounts of police violence
against non-violent
protesters. Even the vandalism and property
destruction that
occurred yesterday, and that many denounced, was
not violence
against other people. The only violence of
significance that has
occurred here in Seattle, in my opinion
human-rights violations, has
been committed by the Seattle Police Department
against non-
violent protesters.
I find myself frustrated tonight that we are now
faced with an
unfortunate choice: we can discontinue our protests
in the streets
and concentrate on alternatives - seminars and
teach-ins that are
well-attended by those in the movement against
corporate-
dominated global capitalism but that are ignored by
everyone else -
or, we can attempt to fight the Seattle Police
Department for our
right to voice dissent. Not only are we unlikely to
win against SPD,
and not only is continuing and perhaps increasing
violence likely,
but it isn't even the right fight. We are here to
demand that the
discussion over global trade be broadened in a
meaningful way, to
allow democratic control of economic
policy-making structures -
the true and participatory kind - that will hopefully
allow each of us
to be directly involved in creating a global
economic system (more
likely systems) that is equitable, sus
Power to the People.
from Seattle, -Josh Miner
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