Protesting for Fair Trade

Prepared by for Why War?

mediamouse

A collection of puppets created for the FTAA protests.

Nov. 25: Facing a large-scale propaganda campaign and heavy police violence, converged in downtown Miami to oppose the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), which was being discussed by leaders of multinational corporations and trade representatives from throughout the Western Hemisphere. Protesters said the pact would put the interests of corporations above those of the people and allow the companies to sue a national government if it passed, for instance, a minimum wage law.

Activists in Miami were targeted by thousands of police, funded by the US Department of Homeland Security, who used . Armed with electric tasers, water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets in shotguns and heavy riot sticks, police beat, gassed, shot and electrically shocked peaceful protesters into submission. They made nearly 300 arrests, of which 30 were felonies. Among those arrested were and legal advisers. Mainstream and independent media documented police brutality, including against . Widespread were , and police to permitted marches as well.

Two Why War? members were charged with felonies after police stopped them while walking on the sidewalk and illegally searched their bags. The two activists were charged with resisting arrest when they asked to speak with a lawyer before answering questions. They were released each on $1,000 bail (we would appreciate your support).

There are still several who are facing . Two people of color were severely with batons and then placed in dog kennelsized cages, where they were denied the use of a bathroom and forced to excrete their bodily waste inside the cages. While in these cages, jail guards sprayed the men with extremely cold water and pepper spray. There are now five confirmed reports of sexual assault occurring in the jail, including one incident of forced fellatio and one incident of anal rape with a police baton committed against a transgendered man.

Please so that these activists can be freed before there are more atrocities. The is reporting , including an incident where police officers fired pepper spray in to the medical center where emergency medical technicians and street medics were treating victims of concussions, rubber bullet wounds and tear gas exposure. Hundreds of protesters were with injuries sustained from unwarranted police violence. You may want to () expressing your and threatening to .

The FTAA, meanwhile, was as a .

Nov. 20: Listen to of the Broward County Police and from Portland (Ore.) Indymedia. Call in breaking news reports to the IMC at .

News Flashes

Why War? will be continually scanning news reports for the most crucial information about the FTAA meetings and the protests. Our goal is to comprehensively monitor whats going on and what the media is talking about, so in some cases the quotes may come from pro-FTAA or clearly biased articles, but we think its important to provide all the information coming out of the media, official and otherwise.

Robert Mayer | Sun-Sentinel

Miami police form a platoon line on East Flagler Street moments before protestors march near the InterContinental Hotel. [enlarge]

Why War? members released on $1,000 bail. If you would like to help, please consider donating to offset this cost. http://www.why-war.com/support/
John DeLeon, an attorney working with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he witnessed police leaving behind personal belongings of people arrested during the protests. He collected two large garbage bags of belongings left behind after arrests, including purses, a camera, eyeglasses, clothes and other personal items. He said this is a "clear violation of the law."
Advocates for those arrested question whether police had reasonable expectations that a crime would occur when they made some of the arrests. They are also arguing the bond was inflated in many cases. One public defender is predicting many of the cases will eventually be dismissed.
Police arrested 222 people on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to aggravated assault on a police officer.
Sources at the Independent Media Center say at least three IMC reporters have been arrested: Jenny Lee and Mike Medow, both of Michigan Indymedia, as well as an IMC reporter who goes by the name of Winter. A television producer with the Madison, Wisc. station WYOU was also arrested.
"This group was then encircled by riot police who blocked the view of the press. In the space of three minutes, police in a circle around this group fired over 100 shots into the group from guns loaded with rubber bullets. An aerosol sound, which the reporter believes to be the sound of mace being released from canisters, was heard. This went on for ten to fifteen minutes."
When the group stalled its momentum, police swarmed in. The group held up its hands again, walked slowly and chanted, We are dispersing. We are dispersing. Cops not only continued to advance but also let off shots of pepper spray and then clamped down the plastic handcuffs.
The sheer amount of cops, the tanks and all the weapons are characteristics of an occupied state, not a U.S. city, said Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange. What is this? Baghdad? The government is basically using the same tactics as it would in war for these peaceful demonstrations. I will not accept that model and neither should anyone.
This was another show of unnecessary force, said Naomi Archer of the South Floridians for Fair Trade Coalition. This is the true visualization of the police state we live in and the iron first that is needed to pull off such an unjust arrangement as the FTAA.
Growing social movements in Latin America, with opposition to economic policies favored by Washington and the International Monetary Fund, have forced governments from power in countries from Argentina to Ecuador to Bolivia. And in a number of countries where the United States is set to negotiate bilateral treaties, presidential elections are approaching, creating political uncertainty for future ratification of the accords.
Miami received a bit of a public-relations black eye with televised images beamed worldwide of baton-wielding police battling protesters. Police made 172 arrests. At least three officers and about 140 demonstrators were treated for injuries. On Friday, the National Lawyers Guild asked for an independent investigation into officers' conduct. The American Civil Liberties Union also was investigating.
[This] is just the latest sign that President Bush's free-trade agenda is in serious danger of slipping into reverse as next year's national elections loom.
"The Bush administration's disturbing pattern of defensively siding with the most obstructionist party at these international negotiations mirrors its domestic strategy of trying to placate narrow protectionist special interests, be they steel makers, cotton farmers or the textile lobby. Both at home and abroad, this approach is a recipe for disaster."
Trade ministers from 34 Western Hemisphere countries, acknowledging their profound differences over how to create the world's biggest free-trade zone, ended their semiannual summit Thursday a day ahead of schedule and with no agreement on key issues.
Associated Press photographer Alan Diaz said he was standing between a crowd of protesters and the police lines when someone threw a rock toward the officers. "Things went wild," said Diaz, who was hit by three rubber bullets and pepper spray.
[Reporters] said being an embed didn't give them better access to the action than non-embedded reporters had. And they said, at times, being embedded actually prevented them from getting opportunities they ordinarily would have had if they were moving about freely on their own.
"At approx. 5 pm Friday evening, Nov. 21, Democracy Now! producers Ana Nogueira and Jeremy Scahill were reporting on the arrest of approximately 20 people who were in Miami to oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Nogueira and Scahill had their press credentials clearly visible. Nogueira was videotaping the arrests. At the time of this writing, Nogueira was being held, handcuffed, in a Miami Police patrol wagon. Jeremy Scahill has learned that there will be a mandatory overnight detention. According to Scahill, his efforts to alert the police that they had arrested a journalist were met with the reply, 'It doesnt matter if shes a journalist she shouldnt have been there.' "
Free fax to mayor of Miami: Use the link to express your outrage over the treatment of protesters.
"Police are following and aggressively attacking people trying to leave jail solidarity protests, bike cops jumping off bikes and tackling people, cops seen shooting a medic in the back three times with pepper spray and at least one rubber bullet. a woman with here arms up as if to surrender to the police was thrown face forward on the ground by police. these were all peaceful people COMPLYING with a police order to disperse."
Police said they arrested 19 protesters overnight, bringing to at least 160 the number of people arrested in connection with protests against the free trade talks that concluded late Thursday in Miami.
[Protesters] finally moved to the sidewalk, turned away from the police and began walking in small groups and individually in the other direction. As they did, a Herald reporter heard shots and smelled pepper gas, and a police spokeswoman confirmed that a small amount of pepper gas was fired. Then, a squad of Miami-Dade police approached from that direction, herded them together and began arresting them. ... Asked for an explanation, Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Dennis Morales said undercover police agents had earlier reported that some protesters had picked up rocks. "We informed leaders to disperse or they would be arrested," Morales said. "They were not dispersing." Told that live pictures from news helicopters appeared to show the group dispersing on its own, he said: "They were becoming unruly."
Large forces of Miami-Dade police officers broke up a few, small protests this evening and made dozens of arrests. In at least one case, the arrests appeared to come as demonstrators were peacefully dispersing on their own.
"The only thing that is free about it is the freedom of corporations to do anything they like; the price for that is the loss of freedom for workers, and the ability of formerly free citizens of formerly free countries to do anything about it."
"The globalization and the debates over it are a real clear sign of the weakness of our news media. They have done such a deplorable job of discussing this issue and presenting the context and the truth about this issue to the American people."
"Police detained one New Jersey teenager for riding a bicycle downtown in the middle of the night and refusing to tell officers what he was doing. His bail was set at $20,000."
"AFL-CIO president John Sweeney also proudly announced that the voices of people around the country would be expressed when ministers received a half-million ballots against the FTAA that were collected nationwide over the past year. (This is in addition to several million more collected in other countries of the hemisphere.)"
"It was as though US and Brazilian trade negotiators feared that if they spent one more minute in Miami, the fragile image of harmony they have struggled to project would shatter in a million pieces."
"The NAFTA side accord could have had a significant impact on labor rights if the governments had chosen to hold each other accountable. But they did not. And there is little reason to think that members of the proposed FTAA would do any better."
"Free speech and the right to protest were seriously threatened by the unprecedented mobilization of more than 40 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Businesses closed and empty streets in downtown Miami filled up with police in riot gear, with helicopters hovering overhead. Police boats patrolled in Biscayne Bay. Organizers were put under surveillance while random searches were made to intimidate protesters during the weeks of protest preparations."
What is at stake is a matter of life and death, says Silvia Moriana, representative of Doctors Without Borders in Bolivia, in reference to the provisions on intellectual property rights and drugs patents in the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
She said that police officers rarely invoked and randomly misapplied a new ordinance banning people in groups from carrying rifles, guns, water guns or lumber more than a quarter-inch thick. ... "We have many, many reports of people whose property was destroyed by police," Rodriguez-Taseff said. "It was a wholesale suspension of the Fourth Amendment."
The American Civil Liberties Union was investigating whether police officers repeatedly violated Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches by stopping people at random, frisking them and dumping the contents of their backpacks into gutters.
The National Lawyers Guild asked Friday for an independent investigation into officers' behaviors during Thursday's clashes. The group sent monitors to record police behavior at the protests.
Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill was shot twice with rubber bullets, as was independent filmmaker John Hamilton who was working with Democracy Now! in Miami.
"It was just a terrifying experience," Lee said. "There was nobody in the crowd who was in any way defying the police."
"People of Miami should be outraged," said Naomi Archer of the Stop FTAA movement. "The Miami police created a military situation. They incited this violence."
Miami has resembled a city under martial law this week as trade representatives from 34 countries and representatives of anti-globalization forces gathered for the FTAA talks. Corporate interests held a three-day America's Business Forum at the Hyatt Regency, while the AFL-CIO had days of rallies at the Gusman Center that culiminated in a Wednesday night concert and Thursday's march.
Protester Medea Benjamin, a member of the human rights group Global Exchange, said she had visited Iraq three times this year and compared the Miami police action to that of U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. "No more militarization and no more occupation in our own country," Benjamin said.
Demonstrators who gathered outside a Miami jail to protest the arrest of their colleagues during this week's trade talks were themselves arrested after defying police orders to disperse on Friday.
The rise of many left-leaning governments in Latin America helped undercut US grand plans for what would have been the world's largest free trade area.
"It is through justice that we all will attain the peace we are looking for," Archbishop John C. Favalora told the 150 opponents of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, part of a group called Root Cause, who were taking a lunch break Tuesday during their three-day march to downtown Miami.
Adding to the war-like atmosphere, police invited local media to "embed" themselves during the week. Several protesters called the display of muscle an "overreaction" and complained that busloads of protesters had been prevented from reaching the downtown.
In a violent conclusion to a day of dramatic protests against free trade in the Americas, armored police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a rowdy crowd of about a thousand youthful protesters yesterday, leaving dozens with chemicals spray burns and welts.
Talks to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas ended one day early in Miami as late-afternoon clashes between anti-globalization protesters and thousands of riot police escalated into street-by-street battles outside the meeting.
"By holding on to subsidies and tariffs, the United States gives the appearance that its trying to con South America into liberalizing its markets, only to be demolished by Americas government-supported industries."
"What FTAA will do is it won't help people in other countries. It will misuse and abuse them and take jobs away from us here," said Joy Randolph, a steelworker from Ravenswood, W.Va. "The workers in other countries are not our enemies. We need to bring their standards up, instead of lowering ours."
While Miami Police Lt. Bill Schwartz said "everything went according to plan," the day was marred by two skirmishes with several dozen protesters who formed human chains to impede officers' progress in the morning and, at dusk, threw rocks, paint and smoke bombs at police.
"The FTAA as the evil all nasty beast has been slain. We now have FTAA-lite, a very much reduced version of the FTAA. It's still bad, but many of the points we were using for why it was truly evil have been removed."
"When we are protesting outside major summits and they close early it's a major victory."
"While on my cell phone, trying to convey information of a massive police presence approaching the marchers, I was assaulted by a captain and field commander of the Miami police force," said Marc Steier, a National Lawyers Guild attorney working with MAD. "He ripped the cell phone out of my hand, broke it in half and threw me to the ground," continued Steier. "After I sustained injuries from the fall, he and other officers proceeded to place me under arrest."
"I saw no justification for the vast array of weaponry used by the police this morning," said Danielle Redden, a legal worker with Miami Activist Defense, on the streets at the time of the altercations. "Without cause, riot police charged the crowd and were literally beating people with clubs as they attempted to march down the street."
Thea Lee, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s top international economist, said she was caught as the police advanced on Biscayne Boulevard. She said the police continued shooting rubber bullets as protesters moved back. "I've never seen anything like this show of force and the abuse of ordinary people," Ms. Lee said.
"I'm here to protest because I just see the F.T.A.A. causing a major loss of jobs for our people to countries that pay $1 an hour with no pension and no health care," said Dave Richards, a Teamster from Akron, Ohio. "I don't see it as a win-win. I see it as a lose-lose."
The result is almost as great a source of gratification to the anti-free trade activists as the debacle in Cancun. Lori Wallach, executive director of Global Trade Watch, a group affiliated with Ralph Nader, said the ministers had "punted all of the hard decisions" to keep the meeting from being "the Waterloo of FTAA." The United States, she said, "was forced to choose between no FTAA and FTAA-lite."
Even though protesters outside the heavily-guarded downtown perimeter were denouncing their governments for acting on behalf of corporate interests, anti-trade activists were jubilant at the conclusion.
More than 70 demonstrators have been arrested during protests in Miami against free trade talks.
"Human rights, cultural rights, social rights, the right to education, the right to access to goods and services are not reflected anywhere in this communiqué," said Wilmar Castro, Venezuela's production and trade minister.
Dozens of buses carrying union members and supporters were prevented from reaching the rendezvous point for the rally, Sweeney said. The route of the march, he said, was abbreviated by police at the last minute.
"They shot me," she yelled as other protesters pulled her away. "They shot me in the back. I was meditating and cleaning trash when they shot me."
Twelve activists were treated for minor injuries and many more suffered bloody noses and bruised ribs during pushing and shoving matches with police. During afternoon clashes near Bayside Marketplace, cries of ''Medic! Medic!'' rose from injured protesters.
Protester Alonzo Mendez was bleeding from an abrasion he said was caused when a rubber bullet struck his chest. I was just taking pictures and they fired at me, he said. Several others said they were also struck by rubber bullets in the head and chest without provocation.
A phalanx of police officers, standing arm to arm in rows sometimes four deep, kept the protesters far from the hotel. Hundreds more police waited on side streets as reinforcements. An estimated 25,000 protesters, mostly belonging to mainstream US labor unions, marched and raised their fists against the FTAA, which they say will result in environmental abuses and a loss of jobs.
"Saving this meeting has become more important than saving the FTAA."
"The real reason for the US climbdown is that Brazil forced it into a corner by making clear that it was prepared to see the Miami meeting fail unless it got its way. And failure is something the US cannot afford politically."
The Free Trade Area of the Americas summit came to a premature close this evening, after ministers from 34 countries apparently accepted a watered-down proposal for creating a hemispheric economic community.
"Weve already won. The City of Miami, Department of Homeland Security, and an array of private dicks and corporate media boosters have successfully accomplished what the movement aims to achieve at each anti-capitalist convergence the total shutdown of the host city."
"CNN had some good clips of the police beating on the crowd, with a voiceover that first says police beat the CNN team and broke their camera then says it was the protestors being violent."
Until now, the US had said its multibillion-dollar agricultural subsidies and tariffs would not be on the table. Brazil retaliated by refusing to discuss such issues as protection of copyrights and patents, foreign direct investment, and transparency in government purchasing. This new agreement opens those topics for discussion.
Many of the thousands who took part in a parade organized by labor unions showed artistry by building tall puppets of flowers, doves, and other animals, and fashioning countless signs with slogans railing against free trade. Others danced, banged drums and sang anti-FTAA chants.
Long, who worked nearly thirty years at Bethlehem Steel before losing his job and pension when the company went bankrupt, told the audience about going to Brazil on a worker exchange. "I learned from the inside about their union struggles and fights against the FTAA. And you know what? They're the same as ours. Free trade is not the fault of the workers. What we need is the United Steelworkers of the Americas, instead of the United Steelworkers of America."
The outcome of Miami will also represent a colossal failure for the Bush Administration. After nine years of insisting that all thirty-four countries must sign on to a comprehensive agreement covering nine issue areas, the US team here has reportedly conceded to pressure from Brazil and other nations to hollow out the FTAA significantly.
Why War? members arrested at FTAA protest more information to come. http://why-war.com/
Following a union march, protesters many believed to be from the anarchist group the Black Bloc set protest signs and a Dumpster on fire. Some used sling shots to fire rocks at police. Police responsed with tear gas, pepper spray, smoke bombs and rubber bullets. About three dozen people were arrested.
"NE 3rd st. Police firing rubber bullets indiscriminately. People moving forward but getting split up. Not enough people to hold a line against the cops. Police also advancing down NE 1st. Police are dividing the demonstrators shooting great numbers of projectiles."
As thousands of union marchers poured into the downtown area, more police arrived, including the Florida Highway Patrol in a tank. By the time of the official march, protesters ranged from The Alliance of Retired Americans to steel and electrical workers to animal activists with foam dolphins on their heads.
In the most tense confrontation since the start of the trade summit here, demonstrators and police squared off Thursday when hundreds of protestors in an unauthorized march tried to enter the downtown area just before morning rush hour.
Police in riot gear used batons, plastic shields, concussion grenades and stun guns in clashes Thursday with hundreds of demonstrators protesting talks aimed at creating a hemisphere-wide free-trade zone.
During a lunch stop at St. Martha's Catholic Church, protesters were visited by Archbishop John C. Favalora, who said he supported their work on behalf of farm workers. ''It is through justice that we all will attain the peace we are looking for,'' he said.
According to a report by the research institute, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, NAFTA has had a "miniscule" impact on the U.S. labour market but salaries in Mexico are currently lower than they were 10 years ago despite greater productivity. Vast wage inequities also exist, and migration continues to grow, it said.
"When the police outnumber the crowd or the scenario for the demonstration requires restrictive rules of engagement to work, police provocateurs will throw rocks that deliberatly miss and encourage others to do so."
Direct Action: "Biscayne and 2nd. The only thing between the marchers and the fence is a thin line of union marshalls. The next call for direct action was 5pm, but the time is now."
" 'Link!' yells David from Code Orange. The circle instantly links arms. This is how we would hold an intersection. 'Lock!' We sit down, amid bumping limbs and laughter. 'Rise up!' This is our mobility tactic: It serves the dual purpose of raising flagging energy and keeping us moving in the face of looming police. We jump four times, hollering 'Liberation!' at each leap."
In September 2002, around 60 civil society organisations in Brazil held a ''popular vote'' in which some 10 million citizens rejected the FTAA.
Police said no significant vandalism was reported. Indeed, most of the protesters were peaceful, carrying puppets, holding signs and chanting "This is what a police state looks like."
Arrested demonstrator Michael McLean ... said he was walking into an amphitheater, which was filling up with union protesters, when he tripped and was zapped with a stun gun. "They haven't told me what I did," said McLean, who sat with plastic handcuffs around his wrists. An armed officer watched him closely as onlookers shouted "Let him go." "Anybody that doesn't look like they're in the union were targeted. I think I was," he said.
"When you have that kind of police presence dressed up in storm trooper garb and a mentality of 'Let's close off the entire city because we had rowdies in another city' ... it has a tendency to incite problems that might not otherwise exist."
Report from the street that there have been small groups of provocateurs trying to blend into the crowd and attempting to provoke protesters into doing things that will get them quickly arrested. Person who reported this said that IMC reporters have video footage proof.
A group of self-proclaimed anarchists marched on Miami streets Thursday morning. That group numbered about 100 and was preceded by two banners, one proclaiming, "Capitalism Cannot Be Reformed" and the other saying, "Against All Authority Anarchy is Against The FTAA." Many were dressed in black, and some wore hoods, masks and kerchiefs. They were marching in a disorganized pattern, breaking off into smaller groups and running at some times. They stopped for a brief time and were confronted with a line of police officers. Then the protesters moved on with bicycle police escorting them and set up a sit-in.
"About 9000 people outside the Amphitheatre. Police drove protestors away from fence about 4 blocks. 1000 Steelworkers marched to the protestors for Solidarity."
"All downtown routes to downtown blocked off (many union buses can not reach the assembly point for their legal rally and march at 12:30, police may be trying to revoke their permit, afl-cio is negotiating with the police over these issues and perhaps also about the continuing police brutality towards direct action participants.)"
"A group of direct action folks were standing in the ampitheater waiting to join the legal march when riot cops surrounded them. 4 people were tasered and beaten badly with batons. After this unwarranted brutality, the four people were arrested."
Officers could also be seen firing some kind of spray at some of the protesters. At least one demonstrator was tackled by several officers. Police also fired a foul-smelling gas at them. One protester tossed back one of the gas canisters, while another stood in front of the officers waving an American flag.
Police estimated the number of protesters they clashed with at between 300 and 400.
The officers were using their batons mostly to push back the protesters, but occasionally used them to strike demonstrators, who oppose creation of the 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas. The officers also appeared to use an unknown spray on some demonstrators. The demonstrators sprayed a cream at the officers.
"This is all meant to prevent the public from interacting with public officials who are going to decide the future of the western hemisphere," he said. "They think they can tell us what we want. It's not about bringing democracy, it's about freedom for large corporations to do whatever they want."
Officers used tear gas and a concussion grenade this morning during one brief skirmish with protesters on Biscayne Boulevard and Flagler Street, near the Hotel Inter-Continental. One opponent of the talks apparently was shot in the thigh with a rubber bullet.
Police fired tear gas and at least one concussion grenade during several brief confrontations with demonstrators.
Thousands of anti-free trade protesters gathered at midday for a major rally and march through the heart of Miami. The climactic demonstration follows sporadic skirmishes that flared this morning between hundreds of activists and a huge task force of police.
"Economic growth is key to addressing environmental concerns. Wealthier makes healthier economic growth will lead to improved environmental, sanitary and health stewardship."
"I'm not very clear on this FTAA," said Kim Gibson, a Dade County court bailiff who was watching the action on his day off. "But I think the people that are here to protest, they're standing up for the little guy, the poor people. I think corporate America is trying to take over everything."
Accusing the United States of using strong-arm tactics on behalf of American pharmaceutical companies, the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders on Wednesday urged trade ministers to remove intellectual property provisions in the FTAA agreement that would impose stringent patent rules, which would drive up the costs of life-saving medications.
"Advances that have been made in the name of workers, women and children will be killed by some FTAA measures," Chancosa said. "We are here to tell these governments to listen to the people whose lives will be affected by what they decide."
British singer Billy Bragg, in his first South Florida concert, sang There is Power in a Union, while country songwriter Steve Earle sang about miners. Boots Riley rapped Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO.
Thousands of police officers some dressed for intimidation as futuristic RoboCops, some assigned to water cannons girded for whatever the day might bring.
If the anarchists were feeling a little paranoid, it's because they are being watched closely: Police helicopters hovered over the anarchists' work space Wednesday. Of the thousands of protesters here this week, it's the anarchists people worry about. Police say they expect most protesters, many of them union members like them, to be peaceful and law-abiding. But the anarchists are unpredictable.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says organized labor's goal is to radically rewrite the FTAA or "stop it cold."
In the Brickell Avenue financial district, a Highway Patrol light-armored vehicle idled in a field near the Brickell Avenue bridge as state troopers in special riot gear milled about.
"At one meeting, when we asked, Please, can you commit to not using lethal weapons, chemical weapons? Timoneys main field commander basically said, We reserve the right to use anything we need, including and up to lethal force. And he said it several times."
The move by Washington and Brasilia to a minimalist FTAA deal reflects gaping disagreements between the two economic titans of the Western Hemisphere over how far negotiations should go in dismantling trade barriers.
Parts of downtown Miami resembled a police state Wednesday. Checkpoints with armed police officers blocked pedestrians without proper credentials from certain streets. Squad cars were on almost every block. Troopers searched vehicles before they could enter certain streets.
Brenda Wentworth, 41, a social worker from Unity, Maine, said she and three other women were surrounded by armed police officers when they tried to tie ribbons on the fence, a security barricade downtown. Wentworth said she was threatened with felony arrest for trying to vandalize a construction site.
US policy is committed to forcing through as hard as it can the Free Trade Area of the Americas. That commitment ... works as a piecemeal country-by-country bilateral strategy to lock economically vulnerable countries into the US plutocracy's international political agenda. Latin American resistance to this centuries-old colonial practice is largely a forgotten history in the United States. "Free trade" ideologues pretend current conditions are inevitable and God-given. It is a profoundly anti-historical, carefully contrived illusion.
FTAA protest leaders said Tuesday that they face a housing shortage after government officials pressured two local religious groups to renege on commitments to provide a vacant lot for a campsite and space in a church.
"The cops deny that and claim the three were blocking the sidewalk. Who are they kidding? Three scrawny young people standing on a corner is not an obstruction. A fourth person was arrested when she tried to retrieve her backpack from one of the three being handcuffed. She was also charged with obstructing the sidewalk all five feet, one inch of her."
About thirty police officers stormed into the Information Clearing House at 1:30 today, searching their location in the Bayside Mall with neither a permission nor a warrant.
"Imposing unequal trade treaties will be bad for millions of the world's poorest people, who stand to be excluded from the potential benefits of globalization. Disillusion with the current system is at the heart of recent unrest in a number of countries of the region."
"NAFTA, the FTAA's blueprint, contains no mechanisms to transfer resources to Mexico. Promoters argued, mistakenly, that the free market alone would lift living standards."
A group of people on the street had been detained for one member of the group picking up a coconut ... at Flagler and 2nd Ave. Solidarity from union members across the street (2,000 steelworkers ... chanting "Let them go") were instrumental in making the police let these people go.
"There have been reports that police are now blocking the intersection of 2nd Ave & 2nd St due to a bomb scare. This is the same location as the (completely unfounded) bomb scare yesterday."
"At one point the cops all lined up their cars in a mass show of force and intimidation tactics. The line of cars numbered around 300 and the police parade stretched for over 1 mile. It was a futile effort to scare us off and was generally ignored."
The Florida Fair Trade Coalition reported Wednesday that their media center at the Bayside Marketplace tourist attraction was raided by seven officers who searched through documents but made no arrests.
Seven anti-globalization activists opposed to the ongoing hemispheric free-trade talks were arrested Wednesday when they attempted to enter a mansion while carrying metal chains and gas masks, police said.
The commander of a Miami police squad that would pry apart protesters who tie themselves together doesn't want his officers getting complacent because demonstrations against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas have so far been peaceful.
The FTAA's rules of investment would additionally allow corporations to sue governments for future profits lost. ... A poor nation like Bolivia would have virtually no protection against the might of U.S.-based multinationals in a case like this. And the FTAA would also include services, which means that everything ranging from water to education to hospitals would be up for privatization.
When the Coral Gables Congregational Church offered space, the Miami police the most frequently indicted police force in the nation issued notice that they were violating nonresidential zoning laws, despite ample precedent of churches housing activists.
"It is protesters' misguided attempt to subvert liberalized trade that represents the true threat to future prosperity for those living in poverty,'' [US Commerce Secretary] Evans told a luncheon crowd on the final day of the forum at the Hyatt Regency. ... The former Texas oil man told the audience of about 250 business leaders from around the Hemisphere that they were the ones who had to make free trade function as an economic development tool.
"When I was in the classroom, I realized what was impacting the students in my classroom was corporate globalization," she told the street-corner throng that gathered. "And I realized this was where I needed to be as an educator."
"NAFTA has failed the 45 million Mexicans who remain in poverty," Phil Boomer, trade specialist with the relief agency Oxfam International, said of the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement. "The danger is that these new bilateral deals will extend the same bad deal to millions more."
"The approval of the opt-in, opt-out version of the FTAA clearly is demonstrative of the new assertiveness of developing countries in trade negotiations," Oxfam spokesman Mark Fried said. "Brazil stood firm and showed that you can win by not buckling under the pressure of the United States."
Activists have witnessed a continuing effort by police and city officials aimed at discouraging people from protesting the FTAA in the coming days. A 5 acre park that was offered by city officials as a place for people to stay was denied by the police.
Trade watchers are increasingly suspicious that the United States' only aim in Miami is to keep talks alive until the meeting ends Nov. 21. Some believe Washington is stalling so it can avoid playing to host to a debacle like the September collapse of World Trade Organization talks in Cancun.
The protesters' "welcome center" near Northwest 23rd Street and North Miami Avenue is the first stop for representatives of the many of the grass-roots organizations coming to Miami. ... The operation which is staffed 18 hours a day feeds nearly 500 people twice a day, and gives many more than that help to find a place to stay, protest and simply answer questions.
Luis Lauredo, executive director of the Miami FTAA, defended the security measures. "We are living under constraints, and living happy under those constraints because we live in a free society," he said.
"They have a SWAT team on the corner. That's scary," said Flossie Williams, who owns a gift shop near where the talks are taking place. "I've been taking photos of them. I have cops on horses. I have cops on bikes. I have cops from Pensacola. I have cops from all over." In many ways, it's de facto martial law.
The chances for a Cancun-style debacle remain, because Canada, Chile and Costa Rica, among others, have objected to the draft declaration as too much of a watering-down of the original FTAA vision.
United States officials, frustrated with the prospect of a watered-down hemispheric trade agreement, said Tuesday they would focus on bilateral agreements with several compliant nations in the Andes, Central America and the Caribbean as a way to get past differences with South America's largest economy, Brazil.
Delegates and journalists have complained ... that police arbitrarily change credential rules. "The police are criminalising protesters," complained Tracy Lerman, an activist from San Francisco. "If they have to use this show of force to negotiate free trade, then you have to wonder whose interest it's in."
As Miami prepares for anti-free trade demonstrators to converge on its business district, its downtown has come to resemble a citadel, in the form of eight-foot high steel barricades and a drawbridge that spans the moat of the Miami River. ... The tough policing operations were designed by John Timoney, Miami's police chief, who was responsible for policing at the Republican party's 2000 national convention in Philadelphia. ... Mr Timoney's hard line there attracted criticism from civil libertarians. Now in Miami, there have been complaints of overkill and allegations that civil liberties are being violated in the name of security.
"We're obviously doing something right," said Melodie Malta, one of the protestors, commenting on the heavy police presence as she danced to the beat of homemade drums. "It's an appropriate picture, and an unfortunate one."
"I think this is one of the most important issues of our generation. ... We hope the meeting gets shut down. We don't have a vote, so they shouldn't have a vote. They don't deserve to run the world."
For Latin America itself, by far the greatest need is a consistent application of good economic policy, that can allow those countries to build on their natural resource and human assets, while reducing markedly the excessive inequality that blights their societies. To achieve this, Latin America needs to find trading partners and role models outside the United States, among countries that are not resented for their success, and can be dealt with on an equal basis, without faux-colonial resentments.
According to experts, the profound differences that have emerged during the talks is precisely reflected in the draft agreement, where more than 5,000 points in 15,000-plus pages are in parentheses due to a lack of consensus on them.
Several hundred officers patrolled the mostly empty streets on Monday. The city even rolled out its fleet of armored personnel carriers in the ghost town.
A dozen activists associated with a group called the Gapatista Road Show stripped to their underwear outside a Gap store in Miami Beach to protest what they claimed were the company's exploitative labor practices.
Two people who police said were pulling on a fence that surrounds the Hotel Inter-Continental main site of the talks were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. One person was charged with felony battery against a law enforcement officer. Detective Delrish Moss, a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, said the officer was not injured.
Police made five arrests and, separately, confiscated four gas masks that might have been positioned by protesters. Officers patrolling the downtown area said they found the gas masks inside a maroon nylon bag at the parking lot of the Miami Sun Hotel, 226 NE First Ave., in the area expected to experience demonstrations later this week.
Representatives from Oxfam International, a federation of nongovernmental organizations, and researchers from Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Institute presented research showing that foreign investment hasn't reversed poverty in some Latin American countries. Panelists at a trade and poverty panel said the most impoverished sectors of society often end up being the losers of free trade.
On Monday ... two protesters were arrested for allegedly pushing up against the fence around the conference, Miami Police Department officials said. Officers approached them and asked them to stop. When they put their hands in their pockets and didn't give their names, they were arrested and charged with obstruction.
The mood in Miami was one of fear Monday, as police and protesters prepared for anticipated demonstrations ... Security is evident throughout downtown Miami. Helicopters buzzed over the city's skyline. On the ground, Florida Highway Patrol troopers parked on the sidewalks leading to the Miami Inter-Continental Hotel, where the conference is being held.
Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, president of the Miami branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the large police presence was a dangerous tool in Miami's quest to win the trade headquarters. "When you use your police force to carry out your political whim," she said, "that is when you have a recipe for disaster."
"In reality, the U.S. economy and those of Latin America are not particularly well suited to close cooperation. Such cooperation cannot be a partnership of equals, like the European Union, because the wage rates and living standards of the U.S. are too far above those of Latin America for any 'free movement of labor' equilibrium to be possible."
Protesters may not need to bother getting gassed by the police as they hoist oversize puppets. Before the party has even started, the two heaviest lifters, the United States and Brazil, have sworn off the steroids and scaled back expectations for the meeting.
Security surrounding the Free Trade Area of the Americas talks turned Miami into a virtual ghost town Monday, the first day of meetings. The streets were empty: park benches vacant; parking places available; shops closed or empty; and little movement by anyone except the police and media.
The 34 trade ministers gathering in Miami this week to hash over a free-trade zone for the Americas would not have to travel too far to discover the limits on patience for free trade. Citrus and sugar growers in rural Florida are happy to see a successful negotiation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas as long as their crops are excluded from the talks that aim to eliminate tariffs and other barriers to trade.
Washington refuses to cut domestic farm subsidies, which Brazil complains undercut poor farmers by pushing prices to ever-lower levels, and to change its anti-dumping laws, which the South Americans say raise tariffs and other obstacles to Brazilian exports like citrus and steel. Despite early lobbying and pressure from Washington, unofficial meetings were not off to a positive start. Attempts by the United States and Brazil to reach a compromise hit a snag Sunday night.
Policemen in grey overalls and weapons strapped to their thighs dotted the area or stood firmly behind barricades as helicopters hovered above. Only limousines, emergency vehicles and participants with identification badges were visible in the area.
"We have elevated this forum ... because we want to dramatize that Miami is an open city'' that welcomes dissent and diversity, Cobb said.
The global antiwar protests that surprised the world on February 15 grew out of the networks built by years of globalization activism, from Indymedia to the World Social Forum. And despite attempts to keep the movements separate, their only future lies in the convergence represented by Cancún. Past movements have tried to fight wars without confronting the economic interests behind them, or to win economic justice without confronting military power. Today's activists, already experts at following the money, aren't making the same mistake.
The groups that make up Root Cause have responded by charting a patient path toward building a local anti-FTAA constituency in Miami's communities of colora stark contrast to the usual script, in which activists swoop into town for large protests, then depart.
The AFL-CIO has attempted to downplay the demonstrations, labeling its mass procession a parade as opposed to a march in order to appeal to those who may be unwilling to risk the liability of being seen as a malcontent ... [it] has also taken the lead in negotiations with police and will restrict its actions to a fenced-in protest pen, while providing 500 orange-vested marshals to line the route [and] direct people to make sure its an orderly event.
Leapfrogging the procession was a Fort Lauderdale police officer who videotaped the marchers as they approached. "We're used to it," said Perkins. "Unfortunately, it's become standard protocol at any kind of public dissent to be treated as criminals."
Trade watchers suggest the United States, as the host of the Miami meeting, is trying to save face by retreating to a less ambitious agreement because the political will for a sweeping deal akin to the North American free-trade agreement is unravelling.
To prevent anyone bent on violence from infiltrating the AFL-CIO march and using it as cover, the labor federation will deploy 1,000 of its own parade marshals, Timoney said. Plainclothes police will also circulate at rallies and demonstrations so uniformed officers will not have to break ranks to make arrests, he said.
On Thursday, the Miami City Commission unanimously adopted an ordinance that would bar protesters from carrying glass bottles, water balloons, pieces of wood more than one-fourth-inch thick and any hard metal or plastic objects. Critics objected that the law was targeted at opponents of the FTAA, overly vague and a violation of 1st Amendment rights of free speech.
"What would be the best thing to come out of this? It would be that the trade ministers from the majority of the countries where civil society is playing a tremendously large role in opposing this were to say that this agreement cannot be fixed as is."
"What we're looking at right now for the first time in history is that corporations have more rights than nations, states and localities. What we're thinking and what we're saying is that fair trade is important, democracy is important, and that the FTAA is bad for democracy, bad for people."
Miami is lobbying strongly to become the Secretariat of FTAA and on this occasion more than 2,500 police officers from 40 departments will face the challenge of ensuring peace for the all the ministers and high-ranking officials and keeping at bay an expected 50,000 demonstrators.
Salas-Jacobson, the police spokeswoman, said people arrested during upcoming protests would be processed in a variety of places, and not necessarily at the Miami-Dade County jail. ... Miami-Dade County has launched a telephone hot line to answer questions about road and school closures and security plans related to the FTAA summit. That number is .
Police said they've even figured out a way to deal with protesters who might try to block streets by hanging on ropes from a tripod, their feet up off the ground. Instead of possibly choking the demonstrator by cutting the ropes, they'll use a vehicle with a ramp that lets officers grab a protester up high to dislodge him.
During the weekend, [police] arrested at least five people opposed to FTAA, including an observer dispatched by protesters to watch officers' conduct. The five were charged with obstructing the sidewalk and refusing to clear out after repeated requests.
Officials from Canada, Chile and several other nations disapprove of an agreement reached between the United States and Brazil to limit the scope of any deal, negotiators said Sunday.
Their shared goal: to shut down the free trade talks any way they can. Many of these demonstrators insist they will create only peaceful disruptions and acts of civil disobedience not the property destruction that has marred other cities that have hosted trade talks. Police, however, are not convinced, and have been keeping a close watch on the warehouse in recent days.
Joining the trade negotiators in Miami are thousands of anti-globalization protesters, who include labor unions, environmental organizations and a small number of far-left anarchist groups who have threatened to disrupt the meetings, despite pleas not do so from a majority of the anti-free trade activists.
Under police surveillance, about 100 demonstrators gathered at a workshop near downtown Miami, working on puppets, art, a water-recycling system and other projects to get their anti-globalization message across. About 200 other people wearing bright yellow shirts staged a colorful protest parade on the streets of Fort Lauderdale.
"Through bold and creative direct action, coupled with outreach and education efforts, anarchists and other radicals will add another chapter to the living history of the global justice movement. Though they may not label themselves anarchists, many of those challenging capitalist globalization in the streets across our hemisphere do so in the anarchist traditions of cooperation, resistance, solidarity, creativity and mutual aid. It is this spirit that compels us to mobilize against the FTAA."
While many associate the expected anti-FTAA protests with young activists who have aligned themselves to a variety of causes, from anarchy to the environment, many of Florida's older residents, particularly longtime union members, are afraid the proposed free trade pact means jobs will disappear from the United States and, along with them, the retirees' hard-earned pensions and benefits.
"Free trade is a wonderful thing, as long ... we're all growing with the same parameters," sugar and citrus farmer Miller Couse said in a soft Southern drawl. "We in no way have a level playing field."
Florida is the biggest citrus and sugar producer in the country, and growers fear a flood of cheap products from Brazil and other nations would wipe them out. Many Midwestern farmers and steel workers have the same fears.
Thousands of protesters are expected to take to the streets of Miami to protest trade talks this week, and although many of them say they will demonstrate peacefully, police are preparing for extremist groups bent on creating havoc. ... Police have assigned thousands of officers to response teams, staged mock protest encounters, prepared firetrucks that could double as water cannons and plan to build a security fence around the hotel where the talks will be conducted.
Pointing to the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement as example, critics contend that trade pacts between the world's richest nation and much poorer ones create an insurmountable disadvantage for high-paid U.S. workers and that jobs roll toward the lower-cost producer.
The Bush administration refuses to discuss slashing subsidies and tariffs that protect U.S. farmers ... Brazil contends its farmers cannot compete in U.S. markets, so it is demanding that subsidies and tariffs be on the bargaining table. If not, it has threatened to stop negotiating over investment and intellectual property rights areas that are key to U.S. businesses' plans for growth in the region.
Only the United States has the muscle to jump-start the currently stalled FTAA negotiations. Brazil and other nations may need to adjust their strategies, but it is Washington that will mostly determine whether the negotiations succeed or fail.