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An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 demonstrators filled the streets of this Canadian city in what has become an uprising of opposition to closed and elite international trade negotiations. Demonstrators argued that the global trade negotiations of the FTAA only serve the interests and privileges of international finance capital, while the most basic interests of citizens, consumers, workers and the environment are regarded as disposable “trade barriers” by trade bureaucrats.
“Reinforcing and improving the quality of our democracies has been the primary goal of our efforts as a community of nations,” Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced on Friday. “Democracy has been restored by people sitting in this room.” Chretien also said that having a democratic government was an “essential condition” for membership in the summit.
For the tens of thousands of people occupying the city’s streets in outrage over the Summit of the Americas’ authoritarian arrogance which took unprecedented measures to exclude and squelch dissenting public opinion, Chretien’s remarks seemed ironic, disingenuous and obscene.
A diverse, decentralized legion of international protesters wearing gas-masks and bandannas defiantly laid siege to the meeting’s Citadel fence, no holds barred, in often awe-inspiring feats of self-denial and rugged determination, to directly attack their naked exclusion, the meetings, the FTAA agenda, and the state system itself.
A massive street party of resistance raged throughout Quebec City for most of the weekend. The presence of the FTAA summit engulfed the entire city. In a move consistent with the overwhelming tone of opposition and offense taken by residents, the Province of Quebec denounced the meetings in a statement issued on Sunday.
Between Apr. 19-21, thousands of rocks were thrown in the face of corporate globalization, making what most demonstrators see as being one of it’s most menacing expressions to date: unabated free trade for North-Central-South America and the Caribbean. Citing the hyper-acceleration of rampant ecological devastation and poverty left in the wake of the FTAA’s precursor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Quebec City’s insurrectionists seemed to be saying: the world is going to hell and you are flying us there with ever greater exploitation, misery and oppression for the majority of the Earth and it’s inhabitants. Your lies and social controls shouldn’t be tolerated any longer and you have no legitimacy or authority anymore. The twilight hour has arrived.
The army of national, state and municipal police responded with a relentless assault of tear gas, batons, water cannon, pepper spray and plastic bullets against an enormously militant opposition which threatened to outnumber their ranks, invade the FTAA fortress and seriously jam the meeting’s proceedings.
Undeterred protesters -- some dressed in makeshift body armor -- engaged in ongoing, pitched battles with police and on several occasions destroyed large sections of the fence perimeter. With helicopters hovering overhead, the city was suddenly transformed into a weekend war zone. On Friday, the meetings were delayed due to the melee.
On Saturday, meeting attendees were forced to move proceedings to an alternate location within the Citadel because of tear gas seeping into the conference building’s air ducts. By meeting’s end, there were 450 arrests, with injuries to more than 71 police officers, 109 protesters and many more bystanders. One person received an emergency tracheotomy after getting shot in the throat by a plastic bullet. “Smash the FTAA,” “Viva Zapatista,” anti-US/Bush/capitalist slogans and hundreds of other graffiti messages had blossomed on many noticeable surfaces.
Organized in opposition to the FTAA, 2,300 delegates from 34 countries attended a People’s Summit nearby. They roundly concluded that the trade agreement was “neo-Liberal, racist and destructive of the environment.” Further, they recommended that the FTAA be rejected in favor of an international alliance based on true democracy, equality, solidarity, and the respect of human rights and the environment. On Saturday, summit organizers chaperoned a colorful demonstration of about 60,000 people.
Among other things, the FTAA critics pointed to the fact that since NAFTA began -- a treaty regarded by Mexico’s indigenous Zapatista movement as a “death sentence” -- Mexico’s poverty rate ballooned 50 percent. In addition, NAFTA’s favorable business climate negotiations — of unregulated labor and environmental conditions — have resulted in an epidemic of low-paying, maquilladora, sweatshop factories. Reports of birth deformities -- such as brainless children -- from maquilladora waste run off contamination are now common.
Commenting on the FTAA’s meaning, Matthew Coon-Come, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations said the 40 million indigenous inhabitants in the western hemisphere are the victims of “a 500-year rush to exploit and colonize this continent.”
“Our position in the Americas has failed to improve,” he said. “Our people are the poorest of the poor.”
Bearing this in mind, many of the protesters explained that they came to Quebec to express deep concern for the people who could never dream of traveling the distance, and for whom the FTAA’s cost will be the most exacting.
Many of those who wanted to travel into Canada to protest were prevented by often overbearing, discriminatory border entrance policies. Hundreds were denied entry by Canadian Customs who politically profiled travelers to prevent the admission of demonstrators they deemed as being fearsome enough to instigate a protest of Seattle-like proportions. Regardless, hundreds of US citizens managed to join their Canadian counterparts in the streets. After a weekend of high escalation battles and incessant bonfires burning through the dawn hours -- which made the anti-World Trade Organization protests in late November 1999 seem tame in comparison -- it was obvious that the Canadian government had failed.
In addition to the mass resistance in Quebec City, people in cities throughout the Americas — and worldwide — held solidarity demonstrations. Protesters took the streets, marched and rallied, performed political theater, engaged in acts of civil disobedience and property destruction, and confronted police in San Diego, CA; Boulder, CO; Buffalo, NY; Portland, OR; Atlanta, GA; and Austin, TX, among many others. In Asheville on Sunday, activists marched through the streets with puppets, chanting “FTAA no way!”
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, over 1,500 people participated in a massive, peaceful protest, which was attacked by police, resulting in over 100 injuries and over 60 arrests. More than 200 people marched and rallied in Bogota, Colombia. Activists in Ecuador occupied the Canadian embassy in the capital city of Quito, denouncing the FTAA for promoting a “new colonization process.”
War zone
Demonstrators pull down the security fence during the second day of protests against the third Summit of the Americas, April 21, 2001.
On Friday, thousands of militant protesters wasted no time in assaulting the security fence after a giant march, comprised of many under the banner of the Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Offensive, led the way. Within the ranks, a small army of black-clad, anarchist Blac Bloc members brandishing sticks set the tone, stopping once to smash the windows of a Shell gas station. This was a city rapidly charged with dissent. Many passive activists abandoned peaceful protest to join the more militant. Observers commented that the $1 million fence became the perfect symbol of the neglect people feel from their “leaders.” Over the course of the weekend riot cops would be actively defending it’s stronghold from all sides.
In a short time, the first sections of the fence were torn down as riot police soon began what would be a prolonged volley of tear gas that seemed to continue with little pause for the remainder of the weekend. Undaunted protesters repeatedly lobbed the canisters back at police. Not long after the beginning of the fence offensive, hundreds of protesters began what would also prove to be a tireless barrage of debris and rock-throwing at riot police. Sidewalk bricks and chunks of the fence’s concrete foundation were quickly smashed to be used as projectiles.
Also on Friday, Quebec police introduced their newly purchased water cannons, the first of which was immediately attacked and disabled by stick-wielding protesters. Despite the continuous police fire -- criticized by many present as indiscriminate -- protester resilience was impressive and indignant as, after numerous gassings, they returned again and again for more combat. Meanwhile, as Jean Chretien, George W. Bush, Vicente Fox and most of the other dignitaries dined on Lac Brome duck supreme and were entertained by Cirque du Soleil, many elderly residents started to complain of respiratory problems from tear gas invading their homes.
On Saturday and Sunday, the battle continued with the fence perimeter ripped open several more times. Resourceful anarchists using grappling hooks did much of the damage. In addition, a bulldozer being used to reinforce the fence was sabotaged. At night, police used laser-sighted rubber bullet guns to target the street insurrectionists. Some protesters returned the fire with Molotov cocktails.
During the daytime, undercover police extensively videotaped students and young people walking to and from the Universite de Laval. The university’s gymnasium was being used as a hostel for over 2,000 visiting activists. Activist Jaggi Singh, who helped coordinate the accommodations, had been suddenly arrested without provocation on Friday by undercover police.
Though not all of the protesters were militant -- many even criticizing the large, rock-throwing contingent for their tactics -- the solidarity of the FTAA/capitalist opposition was felt throughout Quebec City. Everywhere protesters were given heroes’ welcomes by local residents, who shouted, “Yay! Protestataire!” filled water bottles, and blared music out of their apartment windows in support. Some offered advice on the best methods of dismantling the fence.
On Saturday, the Quebec Federation of Labor organized a march of over 25,000 trade unionists. The labor parade as well as the People’s Summit march steered down barren streets in industrial areas out of sight of potential spectators. Towards the parade’s end a sect of march participants wishing to engage in the fence action parted ways with the peaceful others who had decided not to support the confrontation.
Back at the fence, a protester yelled to the FTAA political elite inside, “The planet is dying! Half the world’s organisms are already dead and you hide behind your fence and call us criminals. You think you can tell us how to run our world?”
Source: Asheville Global Report