Re: Naomi Klein on the meaning of FTAA crackdown

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http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/guest/62101.php
Ben Manski: Massacre in Miami? It was a defeat for protesters

By Ben Manski
November 27, 2003

Miami is not Seattle. Both cities are beacons of the future, yet they
light the way on different economic paths.

Seattle is the Emerald City, the city of the new economy, high
expectations, high technology and "high-road" capitalism. Miami is the
Gateway to the Americas, a labor camp teeming with the refugees of
imperialism, the poorest city in America.

It's fitting that trade summits in each city should produce such different
results.

In November 1999 the World Trade Organization met in Seattle. Last week,
the ministers of the Free Trade Area of the Americas met in Miami.

Several hundred Wisconsinites traveled to both ministerial meetings in
protest. We went to speak for our own interests as farmers, workers,
students, business owners and citizens, united in our conviction that
corporations must not be handed the reins to the global economy.

Our experiences in each city were poles apart. Had we gone to Miami
prepared to win, ready to derail the FTAA negotiations, as we had done
with the WTO in 1999, the story you are about to read likely would have
unfolded differently. As it is, the Miami story is one of defeat.

The media dubbed Seattle a "battle," which the WTO opponents won. But
Miami could best be called a "massacre," in which an overwhelming and
disciplined police force wiped the streets of disorganized demonstrators.

Last Thursday more than 22,000 people marched in Miami's streets against
the FTAA. The message of the demonstration was clear: No to closed-door
trade meetings. No to corporation-made law. No to the race to the bottom.
In sum: No to the FTAA.

For a little over two hours, contingents of unionists, civil rights
groups, community organizations, farmers, students, Mexicans, Manitobans
and Miamians, and countless others passed parade-like on a circuitous
route beginning and ending at Bayfront Park.

As the clock neared 4, the tail of the march reached the corner of
Biscayne and 3rd, near the park. Some stood and faced the police lines.
Others attended a free concert in the park itself. Still others began to
leave for home. The police bullhorn broadcast to the thousands still on
hand, "So long as the demonstration remains peaceful, it will continue. If
it is not peaceful, it will not continue." One person shouted in reply,
"Does that include police violence?"

Within minutes, they had their answer. Without any apparent provocation,
the police attacked. First, with batons and tear gas. Then with rubber
bullets, pepper spray and concussion grenades. Marchers began to run, and
then, keeping our senses, to quickly walk, away from the police and toward
safety. Those attending the concert in the park were trapped behind police
lines, and gassed.

They chased us through Miami. This was not a police free-for-all as was
the case with Seattle. This was military precision. Forty police forces -
federal, state, local and military - were under a central command. Over
three hours they forced us back, block after block, with little
resistance, miles from Bayfront Park. They divided us from each other at
each intersection, splitting us, and splitting us again, into small
groups, each a fraction of the size of the one before it. They had clearly
made a decision to suppress the protest, and this they did with the
violence necessary to do the job.

Medics working with the protest reported more than 125 civilians suffered
serious injuries. The Miami Activist Defense estimated that more than 250
people were arrested for protesting the FTAA, including seven
Wisconsinites.

If there is a lesson from Miami, it is this: Retreat usually leads to
defeat.

In Seattle, the police ran amok. They lost the battle for legitimacy to
the moral force of nonviolence, and they lost control of the streets to
the effective use of civil disobedience tactics.

In Miami, the police ran the protests out of town. They not only
controlled the streets, but also often the media. Police commanders
appeared on local television channels as "on-site commentators," in many
cases displacing the channels' own journalists as reporters of the news.

In Seattle, the movement for global justice was new, creative and hungry
for a major reversal of the consolidation of corporate power. The chief
proponent of corporate globalization was President Clinton, and it was
Clinton who called up the National Guard in a futile attempt to insulate
the WTO meeting from the voices of the world's people. We had no
illusions, no saviors; our faith was in democracy, and movements from the
streets.

In Miami, the movement was obviously in retreat. In some respects, the
events in Miami represent the relative weakness of progressive politics in
the post-Sept. 11 era. Our actions were motivated by fears of the
immediate threat, rather than an organized strategy for winning the day.

After congressional authorization of the occupations of Afghanistan and
Iraq and passage of the Patriot Act, we should have had no illusions that
leadership remains within the political establishment to stop the FTAA.
Yet our actions in Miami indicated that we were still operating under
exactly those kinds of illusions. We looked for leaders to emerge who we
could follow, rather than taking leadership ourselves.

However, not all is lost. Because of the leadership of the people of
Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and other nations, the ministerial meeting
produced no real movement toward the enactment of the FTAA. We have a
reprieve, and it is up to the people of the United States to use it.

Attending the protests of the FTAA ministerial meeting was delegate
Leonardo Alvarez, a Green member of the Mexican Congress. As we said
goodbye, Leonardo took hold of my arm and did not let go. He told me, "We
are counting on you. You must be aggressive. You are leaders. You will
succeed, I know you will."

After Miami, we had better.


Ben Manski is a lifelong Madisonian, law student and co-chair of the Green
Party of the United States.