| Second Seattle WTO ShutDown in Mexico
firsthand account by Peter Rosset
Cancun, Sept. 14 -- We just returned from a ceremony for Lee Kyung-hae,
the Korean farmer who immolated himself in protest against the WTO.
Speaker after speaker had the same message: "The sacrifice of Companero
Lee was not in vain, it gave us the energy to derail the WTO talks in
Cancun.... keep fighting for that better world that is possible."
A short time later [we heard about] the collapse of the official talks.
We were told that the Kenyan representative had declared: "This is over.
We have just had a second Seattle," and walked out, followed by the
representatives of South Korea and India. [A delegate] told us that the
massive protests in the streets and the death of Mr. Lee had been key
factors in creating a climate in which Third World countries felt they
could once again stand up to pressure from the US and the European
Union, just like in Seattle.
In fact yesterday, Saturday, was the most incredible day of protest any
of us had ever experienced. [There were] multiple actions by protestors
including the powerfully moving farmer-indigenous people-trade
union-youth protests.
After the violence triggered by paid provocateurs on Tuesday, the death
of Mr. Lee, and a general climate of anger and repression, everyone
feared [a] confrontation on Saturday, and the police brought in massive
reinforcements. They tripled the size of the metal barriers, and the
provocateurs showed up in greater numbers, with shopping carts filled
with stones and huge metal bars.
[But] just when large-scale violence most likely to erupt, the
collective "we" created a show of unity and power that left paid
rock-throwers with no recourse but to stand down. With the black blocks
[militant groups dressed in black] providing security from the
provocateurs and cordoning off the first 10 meters in front of the wire
walls, more than a hundred women went forward with bolt cutters and
began dismantling the walls, bit by bit. What a diversity of women it
was! Indigenous women, punks, students, old women, young women, Mexican
women, American and European women, African women. Once the wall was
weakened, the Koreans supervised the attachment of 50 meter long,
four-inch circumference ropes to the top of the walls. Then thousands of
people of all nations, races and cultures, punks, black blocks,
peasants, etc, together pulled the walls down. Quite literally, the
power of the people, united, pulled down the walls of the WTO.
When the walls fell, there stood thousands of riot police clearly
spoiling for a fight.
Just when they thought we would attack, however, the Koreans who were on
the front line turned their backs on them, everyone else sat down,
hundreds of flowers appeared, and we had a mass memorial service for Mr.
Lee. A singer sang John Lennon's "Imagine" for the crowd, the WTO was
burned in effigy, and we got up and marched away. The police were left
with their mouths hanging open in shock, with nobody to fight with. The
hundreds of journalists who were present marveled at our collective
ability to do the unexpected, to turn promised violence into moving
peace, and to make a statement so powerful that the WTO could not hope
to resist.
The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First,
is a nonprofit think tank and action center, committed to establishing
food as a fundamental human right, www.foodfirst.org/wto/reports. This
article was reprinted with permission.
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