This forwarded from another colleague...


>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 20:35:53 -0500
>From: Adrian Ivakhiv <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: The Real Story from Seattle - 12/1/99 (fwd)
>
>
> Apologies to those who are not interested in this, but I am sure that
some
>of you will be and may otherwise not come across it. It is a participant's
>account of yesterday's events in Seattle (forwarded from another listserv,
>originally from Free Student Press Project <[log in to unmask]>)
>which, if accurate, raises important questions about the limitations in
>media coverage of those events (for instance, the accounts of the "unruly
>mob" that was said to cause the trouble). And it sheds an interesting light
>on the fuss over one RCMP officer's use of pepper spray in Vancouver a
>couple of years ago.
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
>I got on a Greyhound bus in Pittsburgh at 3:00am, the morning after
>Thanksgiving, and traveled 2 and a half days to Seattle to join the protests
>against the World Trade Organization. I arrived to see tens of thousands of
>activists from the widest range of causes I've ever seen in one place,
>united around a common concern -- their desire to have a say in the
>decisions that affect their lives, otherwise known as democracy. I won't go
>into the WTO in great detail. The information is out there. You can find
>for yourself that in the last 4 years the WTO has been in existence it has
>ruled against every evironmental and human health and saftey regulation that
>has come before it and, through economic leverage, has compelled countries
>to repeal these "barriers to free trade." Such barriers in this country
>have been the sections of the Clean Air Act and the Endagered Species Act.
>But I won't go into that further, instead I want to share with you what
>happened here, to me and thousands of others, yesterday.
>
>My friends and I woke up late Tuesday morning. One of the largest portests
>of the century, and we sleep in. We joined the protests at about 9:00am,
>and joined a human chain of people blocking one entrance to the convention
>center where the first day of the WTO summit was to take place. This was
>the scene at every street that led to the convention center. The plan was
>to not let delegates enter and to shut down the meeting. This may sound
>drastic, but the purpose was to send a message that many have phrased as "No
>globalization without representation." The WTO meetings are closed to the
>public and the WTO is not subordinant to any national government or, more
>importantly, and democratic body. Yet it has shown itself to have more of a
>say in things as basic as the quality of the air we breath than we ourselves
>do. To me and nearly 50,000 others, this warranted the serious direct
>action. However, as serious as these demonstrations were, they were to be
>ALL non-violent.
>
>After being part of our own barrier to free trade and turning back WTO
>delegates forabout an hour, we heard that protesters needed help at another
>intersection a few blocks away. Since there were more than enough people to
>keep up the barrier where we were, we left the blockade and headed for the
>corner of 8th and Seneca. When we arrived, we saw lots of demonstrators but
>no major media cameras. There was a smaller group of people sitting downon
>the street (which had already been closed) with police in riot gear standing
>behind them. Instead of the ordinary billy clubs, all of Seattle's police
>were holding 3 foot oak clubs that look more like basball bats than batons.
>When they began putting on their gas masks it became evident that they were
>planning to use pepper spray on the people sitting down. The rest of the
>crowd was pleading with the police not to use this cruel tactic. It was
>possible that if more people sat down, they police wouldn't spray them, so I
>joined that group. When it became apparent that they were going to use the
>spray anyway, we all locked legs and arms together and I pulled a bandana my
>freind had given me over my face, covering my mouth and eyes. Onlookers
>bgan yelling, "Get ready! They going to do it! Get ready!" I heard the
>spray and people began screaming in pain. I was just expecting spray, so I
>was pretty surprised when I felt one of those big clubs land on the top of
>my head. The guy behind me took most of the force from the blow, so I
>wasn't hurt badly. I covered my head with my arm and covered my eyes with
>my hand, as the screams continued and it became obvious -even though I
>couldn't see anything from underneath my bandana- that the cops were not
>only spraying but beating the people as well. A police officer then grabbed
>my hand and pulled it away from my face and spayed me in the eyes with a
>cannister of pepper spray. I held my eyes closed tight and my bandana
>absorbed the spray, protecting my eyes and face. I breathed a little bit of
>it in and began coughing. the crowd started to break up as the police
>continued beating people. I pulled away and stood up, pulling the bandana
>away from my eyes to see the police beating the few people that remained
>sitting.
>
>One woman was trying to get up and they kept jabbing her in the side with
>their clubs. The rest of the crowd pulled those 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. This was my first experience with the
>spray. I got a tiny bit of the spray on my forehead and it burnt very
>badly, was very painful. I can't even begin to imagine the pain the people
>felt who got it sprayed directly into their eyes. I think I was luckier
>than anyone else I was sitting with, having escaped the spary and only
>having been clubbed once. I screamed at the cops for a while, called them
>facist pigs between plenty of other expletives. But when things calmed down
>a bit, myself and others began speaking to the police. It suddenly became
>evident that some of them were visibly disturbed by what they had just done.
>One female officer's hands were shaking as she held her club up to her chest
>like the rest did in the line they had formed. She kept blinking her eyes
>to avoid crying. We talked to other officers who wouldn't look us in the
>eyes, but their faces showed no signs of pleasure. After I calmed down a
>bit and got my emotions under contol enough to speak, I said to them, "You
>probably think we're just fanatics with nothing better to do, or maybe
>vagrants who are too lazy to be working right now, or maybe spoiled college
>kids who don't have to work. You can think that we're idiots who came
>across a few statistics on environmental degredation or sweatshops, that
>we're out here today to be self-righteous and think that we're better than
>everybody else, but we're people just like you. And everybody standing here
>with me knows exactly why they're here today. We're trying to make the
>world better. And I don't think a single one of you even knows why you're
>here. How many of you support the WTO? How many of you even know what it
>does? We know why we're here. Why the hell are you here? I don't think
>any of you became police officers to beat people who aren't a threat to
>anyone's safety. Just who do you think you're protecting? We're unarmed.
>None of us have tried to attack you or anyone else today. You attacked us.
>You aren't protecting yourselves; there's no one behind you that you're
>protecting -- Who do you think you're protecting!? If you have a good
>reason for beating us today, if you felt it was right, that's one thing.
>But if you didn't have any reason and you still beat these people anyway, I
>want you to ask yourself why you did it. Why you were willing to inflict
>violence on other people for no reason other than you were told to." I
>asked them to go home and think about that; what they did to make things
>better today by beating non-violent protesters; if that's what they became
>cops to do.
>
>They were all silent, turning they heads constantly to avoid eye contact
>with any of the protesters speaking. Th commanding officer walked down a
>line in between the police and us,pushing protesters back. He ordered the
>crowd to disperse, saying that if we didn't leave they would remove us by
>force. We didn't leave. We just kept talking to the police more. I asked
>the commanding officer to explain to us why we ought to leave. He didn't
>acknowledge the question. I asked them all if that's what those clubs
>meant, that they didn't have to explain their actions to anyone, even
>themselves. Other protesters reminded them that even though they were
>trained to be robots, they were still people who were responsible for their
>own actions -- orders or no orders. I told them my name, where I was from,
>that I go to college, that I have family and friends. I asked them their
>names. None answered.
>
>We stayed there and the police didn't charge. Not because I think we
>convinced them not to, but because there were too many of us. Soon a group
>of people with their arms chained together inside tubes wrapped in duct
>tape. 4 of these people were from Athens; 3 OU students and friends of
>mine. The police were still threatening to charge the crowd.
>
> I quickly realized that these people had no way to protect their heads from
>the police clubs. Being obviously violent had already proven to be no
>defense against police violence. Another OU student and I walked up to the
>police line to ask them about this. The line was now made up of different
>police officers. We approached one and asked him about this. He looked at
>us and said, "Well, if they're worried about getting hurt, they should have
>thought about that before they came out today." I asked him to show me his
>badge number. He refused. "Aren't you required to show your identification
>to the public?" He didn't answer. The officer to his left sneered at me
>and said, "Well you have all the answers, why don't you tell me?" Before I
>could, he raised his club and yelled at me to back up. I did and continued
>talking to him, but he looked away and ignored me. The first officer had no
>identifying number anywhere on him. No visible badge, no number on his
>helmet. I took his picture and got others to. Telling everybody that we
>needed to watch him.
>
>When I first spoke to police after they had beaten us, I was very encouraged
>that some had actually shown some signs of human compassion, but my
>hopefullness dissappeared after I talked to the latter group of officers and
>realized that many of them were quite happy to inflict harm on people.
>Reinforcements came and as protesters cleared the way for them, one cop
>pushed a protster, and said "Get the fuck out of my way," with a smile on
>his face.
>
>>From time to time ambulances would come through and the crowd would clear a
>path immediately. Some protesters said, "What if WTO delegates are sneeking
>in on the ambulances?" But people came to an immediate concensus that,
>although that was a possiblity, it wasn't worth risking people's safety.
>Suddenly, a WTO delegate made it unnoticed through our lines. But when he
>made it to police they refused to let him enter. They turned back another
>delegate later. As it turned out, we were gaurding an exit not an entrance;
>that they police's orders were to not let anyone in -- whoever they were.
>Also, since police had shut down the street and no protesters had attempted
>to cross police lines, none of us were even doing anything illegal. -- which
>is probably why none of the people in the sit-down group were arrested.
>Though none of us were arrested, all of us were beaten and sprayed.
>
>Word soon made it to us that the situation was worse elsewhere. We made our
>way to the heart of downtown and found the streets full of teargas. There
>was a large group of people sitting down in front of police in full riot
>gear with their gas masks on. Behind them was an armored tank. They police
>attacked protesters again. Against non-violent protesters, they used pepper
>spray, clubs, tear gas, and later fired rubber bullets and marbles at the
>people. In every single instance I witnessed first hand, police violently
>attacked non-violent protesters with no provocation whatsoever. That was
>the case when I was beaten and sprayed, that was the case when downtown was
>flooded with gas, with helicopters flying overhead shining spotlights down
>into the crowd. Thousands of police forced protesters out of the dowtown
>area firing cannister after cannister of tear gas into the crowd. My
>friends and I were split up in the crowd of people fleeing from the gas.
>eventually, I made it back to the house to join them.
>
>The whole way to their house, I was hoping that this story would get out.
>Hoping that the level of violence inflicted on non-violent protesters,
>peacefully assembled, would wake a lot of people up and show them the level
>of democracy in this country. Hoping that people would see what the level
>of force aimed at people who peacefully oppose the interests that are
>dominant in this country and the world. I returned home to have this hope
>crushed. The local news stations were reporting on the broken windows of
>businesses and not the broken bones of protesters. They reported on things
>like "police fatigue." Which I assume is when your arms get tired after you
>beat people for hours. They talked -and continue to talk about- the
>extremely "restraint, openmindedness, and gentleness" displayed by police.
>
>A state of civil emergency was declared and a curfew was set for 7pm. If
>anyone was downtown after that, they would be arrested. Police cleared the
>curfew zone of people, but we watched them on TV continued to pursue them up
>Capitol Hill -- blocks past the curfew zone. The police chased them into a
>business area and fired tear gas into crowds that were now made up of
>shoppers and people getting dinner as well as protesters. Finally, after 12
>hours of people being beaten and gased, a small riot broke out. A Starbucks
>coffee store was damaged and looted. I'm amazed it took this long to
>happen, and I say this in all honesty from being here first hand, that, by
>repeatedly attacking and torturing non-violent protesters, the Seattle
>police sought to incite a riot and finally succeeded to a small degree. The
>news kept running the scene of Starbucks being looted again, and again, and
>again. At least a dozen times in under an hour.
>There were also quick clips of police beating demostrators shown once and
>not again.
>
>A newscaster on KOMO, channel 4, said, "Look, earlier today we saw
>protesters carrying signs with clear messages against the WTO, but what you
>have going on now is an unruly mob just trying to cause problems. In the
>pictures we're seeing now, I don't see any signs at all. These people don't
>have any message." What the newscaster failed to notice was that
>people,myself included, dropped their signs when they were fleeing for their
>lives. They were dropped because you need two hands to gaurd your eyes
>from tears gas. Talk of the "police being too lenient" has continued into
>todays news reports. And the lack of signs continues to be portrayed as a
>lack of any constuctive purpose among the protesters. One newscaster said,
>"Come on, get a life. We live in a prosperous country." In all honesty, the
>news is scaring me more than the riot police, because what it has done is
>justify further violence against the protesters. They have said that
>"police have been too lenient." The police have used teargas, pepper spary,
>clubs, rubber bullets, and marbles against peaceful civilians in downtown
>Seattle. The only thing they haven't done is used live amunition. And in
>the event that greater violence occurs against protesters, the media will
>have justified it.
>
>Besides insulting protesters the local media has focused on the diruption
>to traffic and holiday shopping. The National Guard is now occupying the
>city, a 50 block "no protest" zone has been established, about 120 people
>have been arrested, and many have been hospitalized -- though that has
>recieved no coverage as far as I've seen.
>
>In other news, we succeeded in shutting down the first day of WTO meetings.
>The situation is still developing, so I encourage everyone to watch the news
>coverage and contrast it to what I've written here. AND PLEASE, do your own
>research on the WTO.
>
>-Damon Krane
>------- End of forwarded message -------
>Katharine N. Rankin
>Assistant Professor
>Department of Geography/Program in Planning
>University of Toronto
>100 St. George Street
>Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3
>Canada
>ph: 416-978-1592
>fax: 416-946-3886
>email: [log in to unmask]
>
>


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