Stockholm Free Press
Inside WTO Dissent: Cancun, Mexico
Some five thousand protesters came to Cancun, Mexico for five days to revolt against the World Trade Organization, and to celebrate. They came as support, evidence. They came with friends, allies; to sell their artwork, food, jewelry. They want improvement: global equity, a better integrated world.
Wednesday -- 4:00 p.m.
The first demonstration had ended. Fences had fallen; rocks had landed. Bankrupt, Mexican campesinos from the rural south and their sullen families had finished marching. Lee Hyung-Hae of the Korean Agriculture Association had killed himself in radical passion by stabbing a knife into his chest in public view. An unknown mist made a dozen people vomit repeatedly.
Now, the street-circle area -- known to activists as Kilometer Zero -- had returned to calm. Mexican police armed with black metal clubs and water cannons and clad in black tactical vests and helmets holding plastic riot shields stood in layered formation as stragglers took photos. Water bottles and random trash dotted the pavement. Area locals looked straight-faced and curious. Media people spoke into cellphones, pacing, in nice clothes. Young tourists sat in tiresome circles. Korean women of pale demeanor fixed vegetarian stew.
Twenty minutes southwest on foot: Via Campesina, or the Casa de la Cultura, a large gymnasium had transformed into a Latino camp, lazy and pale. Soft-spoken farmers knelt or stood amongst scattered campsites pitched around or inside the musty, humid gymnasium. Those awake looked tired, thirsty, and middle-aged. Most wore dark skin, showy belt buckles, brimmed hats and plaid-shirts, as if patiently waiting to be led someplace else. Their busy wives held onto children, cooked, or sat calmly next to them. Just one vendor sold incense, big-business snacks and tee-shirts with imprints of Mexican-revolutionary Emiliano Zapata or Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the Cuban revolution.
“I’ve been here four days. The best place to sleep is right here. Just find a spot on the ground. These people’ll look out for you,” a 24-year old Italian named Roberto from the Italian Communist Party said. “The other camps aren’t as safe.
“Today’s protests got real good for a short time. Italians number 100. We took down the fence. The moment was ... I not sure how to explain.”
A twenty-five minute walk northwest to Cancun’s central, public area -- or Palapas -- had more energy. The punk rock members of the ‘Black Bloc’ and hundreds of hipster youths apparently educated and traveled turned a cement town-square into a tourist commune. Vendors sold quesadillas, jewelry, clothing, bags. A bearded, dread-locked, shoeless Mexican juggled bowling pins. Five Canadian girls mountain-biked five weeks from Montreal with friends, collecting pieces of linen cut from the handprints of those they'd met along the way. Drum-circles vibrated with bass, and competing noise. Dancing hippies danced together. A concert had been scheduled in the amphitheater.
Five minutes north at the Center of Convergence and Independent Media Center, information planning had begun: a community calendar set reminders and classified locations and event times -- panels, seminars, forums, etc. -- as sleep arrangements took shape.
“Our best option’s the squat,” said an American punk nicknamed 'Metal' with a mohawk and boots, silver spiked accessories and torn black clothing patched with white labels and anarchist symbols. “They seem cool. We can trust them.”
Thursday -- 2:30 p.m.
The Latino farmers began to march, chanting, “Zapata Vive! La Lucha! Sigue Sigue! – Zapata Lives! The Struggle! Continues!” Led by a clunker Ford truck, filled with flowers, women, children and speakers, a Venezuelan man in his mid-forties preached what sounded honest into a loud microphone, tears running down his gripping face. Time to time, he’d stop, rest, make the sign of the cross, and wipe his tired face. Those following him looked fragile, worried, helpless. When he stopped, they stopped.
Until Kilometer Zero, where the Korean farmers waited, calm and attentive. Also impoverished "as a result" of the WTO’s "mistakes" and “weaving of death.” The Koreans had straw hats on their heads, bands around their foreheads tied in the back, matching red vests that read in white ‘NO WTO.’ Sitting in formation, they had a muscular, disciplined appearance.
“We reaffirm our consolidation with all the farmers in the world. Our camp is now relocated here to this camp. And we declare the camp as Campanero Lee,” shouted Rafael, the Chilean spokesperson for Via Campesina, the Latino faction.
The day before, Campanero Lee martyred his life.
“Mr. Lee, like (former Chilean President) Salvadore Allende, is a person who will never die. We’re gonna pass his word.
“The death of Mr. Lee was an assassination of the WTO,” Rafael shouted.
A Black man calling himself Mangaliso of the Landless People’s Movement stepped in front of a crowd of African farmers, adding, “Campadre Lee sacrificed himself for the people. If we keep on fighting, his spirit will live forever!
“We are here not to mourn, but to celebrate our victory against what we hate,” he added, also declaring the area his new camp as leader of the African contingent.
With gallant handshakes, the Korean farmers embraced the others, and led a vigil in Lee’s name. One by one, hundreds of demonstrators from hundreds of heritages placed soft, white, long-stemmed roses atop and around a make-shift altar and picture of Lee. Silent with prayer, the Koreans watched, nodded, and burned candles and incense.
An alliance had formed.
September 11, 2003 (Thursday -- 8:30 p.m.)
Youths marched from the Palapas to Campanero Lee, the former Kilometer Zero, drumming tin garbage lids and cans, rattling bottles, torching fire, spraying paint, and pushing shopping carts. All thousand of them, each contributing their own commotion, their own noise and collective destruction.
Graffitti artists painted messages on cars, sidewalks, buildings, storefronts. Others broke the windows at McDonald's, cheering “Lee, Lee, Lee!”
Their public outcry eventually reached Kilometer Zero, Campanero Lee, the Koreans, Latinos and Africans. At that point quieting down, the riotous youths for fifteen minutes stood mute cusping their fists high above their heads, silently saluting a theatrical message -- That the alliance had grown.
Friday -- 1:00 p.m.
Meanwhile, a beach side plaza near the WTO meetings -- in Cancun's 'Resort District' -- became the location of a Fair Trade Fair, created by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and OxFam International, among others, as a way to provide information about some 70 farmer cooperatives and Fair Trade artisan associations.
Young protesters and dingy farmers weren’t present. Instead, academic discussion took priority. About everyone had identification badges around their necks, indicating they also had access to the WTO meetings.
“Below-cost imports drive developing country farmers out of their local markets ... Farmers who sell their products to exporters find their global market share undermined by the lower cost competition,” said one event representative.
A spokesperson for the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture added, “The ultimate solution to the social and economic problems ... is a transition to a more decentralized, democratic and cooperative, non-corporate, small-scale organic farming as practiced by traditional farmers, agro-ecologists, and indigenous peoples for millenia.”
But, critics from the European Union and United States disagree, claiming the globalization of industrial technological agriculture -- or genetic engineering, synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and food irradiation -- and the homogenization of farming brings greater efficiencies than local diverse farming.
As a matter of fact, “Nearly 25 million coffee farmers in Latin America, Asia and Africa have seen prices fall by 70 percent in the last five years,” a spokesperson for OxFam said, before mentioning other parellel forums and workshops scheduled every hour in the area, including a sustainable trade symposium and Fair Trade in the Americas strategy forum.
People lunched at sunny, quaint restaurants. Unarmed Mexican police protected the polite, wealthy area.
Saturday -- 10:00 a.m.
At least 5,000 people marched ‘Against Corporate Globalization and Militarization’ from Beto Avila Stadium, where the 12-bus student caravans from Mexico City made an enclosed baseball field into a sweaty campground, past the nearby Casa de la Cultura, and towards the site of Campanero Lee, where hundreds of armed police guards stood behind three ten-foot fences.
Thousands of organizers from across the globe held signs and banners, and led chants critical of transnational corporations. And paraded towards the police. The Infernal Noise Brigade, a drum corps from the U.S. formed in 1999 for the WTO protests in Seattle, provided adrenergic melodies.
Upon reaching the fences, what should occur?
“A lot of violence,” one Mexican activist answered. “It’s right to move past the barricades, though.”
Added a punk-rock member of the 'Black Bloc,' “If police attack us, we’re gonna defend ourselves to protect the people.”
A Korean spokesperson explained, “We’ve organized three levels of action: one here, one on the other side of the fences and police, and one inside the actual meetings. We will remove the barricades.”
Added a smiling South African, “More rocks will be thrown, there’s nothing going to stop that. Things will probably escalate beyond that.”
Enter a reporter with IMC: “The symbol’s been made. People are gonna knock down the fence, and then nothing will happen.”
Carrying a heavy banner, wearing goggles, and focused straight ahead, an Italian prepared for “global disobedience.”
At that, some 100 women stepped forward, and partly crippled the barriers. Then, a few Koreans attached some rope, and began the pull. Soon thereafter, police watched their fences fall yet again.
But, despite predictions, peace ensued.