Protesters confront US-backed ‘free trade’ pact

In Quito, Ecuador, thousands participated in demonstrations against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA)
over the weekend of Nov. 2, 2002.

Compiled by Eamon Martin

Nov. 6 (AGR)— Thousands of small-scale farmers, indigenous groups, students, and activists from around Latin America came together in Quito, Ecuador, over the weekend to protest plans to put in place a United States-backed free trade agreement which would tear down trade barriers from Alaska to Argentina starting in 2005. Despite heavy police repression, determined demonstrators persisted, shouting that the free trade zone would turn Latin America into a US colony. At one point, police themselves rebelled and joined the protests.

Demonstrations were held across Quito on Thursday and Friday by a range of groups eager to show trade ministers from the continent’s 34 nations — gathered in the city for a two-day meeting on a preliminary accord for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) — that the free trade model promoted by the administration of President George W. Bush will hurt, rather than help, most societies in Latin America.

At least 60 members of the groups, marching to the meeting venue at the JW Marriot Hotel, were reportedly injured in clashes with military and police forces who used tear gas and fired guns at the demonstration.

The FTAA “will put an end to life, natural resources, national production, and the environment” and worsen “poverty, hunger, and unemployment” in the country, said the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), one of the major groups backing the march.

The coalition, which has achieved a high profile for its protests against the government’s economic austerity measures, believes the agreement would hasten petroleum and mining exploration in the country’s fragile Amazon region, and hurt the livelihoods of small-scale farmers by opening up markets to imports of subsidized food products from the US.

Other groups involved in the demonstrations took over a branch of a downtown Quito McDonald’s restaurant.

Some US-based groups have also raised concerns over the effect of such an agreement on workers’ rights across the hemisphere. New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) asked trade ministers Thursday to carefully consider labor rights as they prepared the FTAA blueprint.

“Free trade won’t lift lives if it rewards, rather than discourages, harmful child labor, sex discrimination, and anti-union conduct,” said Carol Pier, HRW’s labor rights and trade researcher.

According to Jason Mark of California-based Global Exchange, a social justice organization, the agreement would be “yet another example of the kind of free-market fundamentalism that has created a global race to the bottom that erodes environmental protection, workers’ livelihoods, and human rights.”

Opposition to the FTAA has been strengthened by the experience of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — involving the US, Canada, and Mexico — which serves as a model for the new plan. A recent study by two Tufts University researchers concludes that Mexico has received virtually no benefits from NAFTA. Instead, they found that unemployment and environmental degradation in the country have increased.

“It is widely accepted that the goal of economic integration should be to raise living standards,” wrote Timothy Wise and Kevin Gallagher. “According to our review of the public record, NAFTA has yet to fulfill that promise.”

While trade liberalization has increased investment in Mexico, and foreign direct investment has nearly tripled, economic growth remains sluggish — under one percent annually — and real wages for most Mexican workers have dropped by 23 percent since NAFTA began, according to Wise and Gallagher.

Moreover, NAFTA has not brought cleaner technologies to Mexican industries; industrial pollution has nearly doubled since 1988 and real spending on the environment has declined by 45 percent since NAFTA took effect, the researchers said.

Ecuador’s own experience with opening its markets to international trade has also been negative. A recent review by SAPRI-Ecuador—a group of World Bank government, and nonprofit organizations—concluded that two decades of such policies have “stripped Ecuador of its productive capacity, de-industrialized the country, and reduced food security,” among other ill effects.

Police rebel,
US Trade Rep humiliated

On Thursday afternoon, after the worst of the police violence against the tens of thousands of protesters had taken place, a police platoon, including various officers, rebelled against their own government, and joined with indigenous leaders and other protesters in demanding that the trade ministers from 34 countries meeting to negotiate the FTAA agree to receive a delegation from the protesters carrying a declaration of opposition to the FTAA.

According to sources, this news rocked the Ecuadorian government which has seen two previous presidents thrown out of office by the indigenous movement in alliance with rebel security forces. At that point, the Ecuadorian government sent in the army to relieve the police, on the one hand, and on the other, began to lean heavily on the trade ministers, and especially on Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, to accede to the protesters demands.

US Trade Represenatative
Robert Zoellick

As the popular movements re-grouped at Arbolito Park in the afternoon, the government extracted a reluctant offer from the ministers to receive a delegation composed of two representatives of the protesters. When the indigenous leaders of the CONIAE, Leonidas Iza and Blanca Chancoso, said no to the offer, the ministers came with an offer of ten. When that was refused they said that 30 people could come, but that too was refused, as was an offer of forty.

The protesters finally accepted to send a delegation of 50 people, over the strenuous objections of Zoellick, to be accompanied by the entire march up to the innermost security perimeter.

At about 6:30pm the delegation passed the barricades, escorted by special forces soldiers heavily armed with automatic weapons. Although the agreement was for a delegation of fifty, in fact 65 protesters managed to get into the Swiss Hotel where the historic meeting was to take place. The delegation included the top leadership of Latin America’s most powerful social movements, including Iza and Chancoso, Joao Pedro Stedile of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) of Brazil, Rafael Alegria of the international farmers’ movement, the Via Campesina, Juan Tiney of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Movements (CLOC), and many others. Also included were representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who work with these movements, like Peter Rosset of Food First and Nicola Bullard of Focus on the Global South in Thailand.

The delegation entered the basement auditorium of the hotel at the same instant as the 34 trade ministers, led by Zoellick. As the ministers sat down across the room, facing the protesters, Peter Rosset stood up and addressed Zoellick. “Excuse me,” he said, “are you an American?” As Zoellick turned to see who was addressing him personally, Peter Rosset continued: “I am an American too, and I am ashamed at how you and the Bush Administration are trying to force Latin American governments to sign a trade agreement that will only bring them misery and poverty, and will bring the same to the American people.”

As the protesters applauded and some of the Latin American trade ministers smirked, Zoellick looked very sour, at what was only the beginning of a very uncomfortable meeting for him.

The next treat for Zoellick was a speech by parliamentarians from 11 countries, ranging from Canada to Bolivia, in which they called on their respective governments to “reject the FTAA and recall their negotiators at once.” While the speech was being read, three congress people actually stood in front of Zoellick with placards reading “No al ALCA” (No to the FTAA).

A short time later, Iza addressed the ministers. He began by saying, “Señores, I wish to say to you, not to offend, but only to speak the truth, that you cannot understand how the poor live in the Americas, because you were born in golden cribs.” He then went on to humbly and movingly lay out exactly why the FTAA would mean “death to the indigenous peoples’ of the Americas.”

This was followed by a reading of the protesters’ declaration, by Nicaraguan farm worker leader Maria Elena who began by saying “this is not a consultation or a dialog, this is a statement of implacable opposition to the FTAA by all the peoples’ of the Americas.” The declaration warned that, “if you don’t listen to our voices and those of millions more across the continent, you will be responsible for putting the very future of the Americas at risk.” She concluded by shouting, “Yes to Life! No the FTAA! Another America is Possible!!!”

As the unusual encounter ended, Rosset addressed Zoellick once more.

“You know as well as I do that all opinion polls show Americans want no more free trade agreements, and you should be ashamed to go against the wishes of your own people,” he said.

Shouts of “shame on you!” came from the protesters. Even some journalists yelled “sell out!” while others said that Zoellick should be ashamed he doesn’t speak Spanish. The whole meeting was translated for him via earphones. A protester spoke to the Latin American ministers, saying, “have you no self-respect, that you accept the imposition of this guy who can’t even speak our language?” All the media cameras immediately zoomed over to record the miserable expression on Zoellick’s face, as several Latin American ministers tried to hide their smiles and chuckles behind their fists.

“After today’s Seattle-like protests,” concluded Rosset, “the US government and the transnational corporations can never again claim that opposition to free trade comes only from a small group of northern environmentalists. It is abundantly clear that people from all walks of life, across all of Latin America, do not want anything to do with the FTAA, the World Trade Organization or any other manifestation of trade liberalization.”

Anti-FTAA solidarity protests were reported in various cities worldwide, most notably in Montreal, Canada where at least 10,000 people demonstrated.

In April of 2001, during the first FTAA negotiations in Quebec City, Canada, 40 – 60,000 people protested the meetings. After three days, police had arrested 463 people while dispensing 4,709 cans of tear gas and 822 plastic bullets in an attempt to quell the dissent.

Sources: Food First, OneWorld US, Reuters, Toronto Star

Army Secretary White abused accounting rules at Enron

By Jason Leopold

Nov. 1— If there’s any doubt that Army Secretary Thomas White abused an accounting mechanism when he was vice chairman of Enron’s retail division in order to make his division appear profitable when it wasn’t, read the new rule adopted last week by a panel of the Financial Accounting Standards Board that suggests otherwise.

US Army Secretary Thomas White

For the first time since Enron’s demise one year ago, the Financial Accounting Standards Board said that Enron and other energy companies abused a four year-old accounting rule known as mark-to-market accounting, whereby profits from long-term energy contracts are booked immediately rather than when the money is actually received. This accounting trick allowed companies like Enron to create an illusion of a profitable business unit despite the fact that the unit, at least in Enron’s case, was really a house of cards.

No company pushed the envelope further in its abuse of mark-to-market accounting than Enron Energy Services, the retail division White co-chaired prior to his appointment as Secretary of the Army last year. Under White’s tenure at Enron Energy Services, his division booked tens of billions of dollars in profits that were based on bogus predictions of future energy prices and hid massive losses by inflating the value of the deals. The only ones who benefited from Enron’s use of mark-to-market accounting are White and a handful of Enron executives who received millions of dollars in bonuses and stock options once the energy contracts were signed.

During his testimony before a US senate committee in July, White said he stood behind the use of mark-to-market accounting even though many lawmakers told White that these contracts created a false picture of prosperity.

“The deals that we put together within the accounting structure that was accepted and was the standard in the industry — I stand behind that — were signed and the right deals to do and were properly accounted for at the point that we signed those up.”

Now that the Financial Accounting Standards Board task force recognizes that there was a pattern of abuse in the way White’s division booked profits, it has suggested that the mark-to-market accounting rule be scrapped. After Dec. 15, energy companies will only be able to report profits from contracts as they are received. But it’s unlikely that White will ever be held accountable for the dubious accounting methods he engaged in that made Enron Energy Services appear as if it were a legitimate operation. Former employees of Enron Energy Services, who have been reluctant to speak out for fear of being forced to testify before one of the committees investigating Enron’s collapse, say they are now considering blowing the whistle on White and others who worked at the unit to set the record straight.

Source: CounterPunch

AGR editor injured
by Asheville Police

By Nicholas Holt

Asheville, North Carolina, Nov. 6 (AGR)— Early on the morning of Nov. 1, following police disruption of a Halloween-inspired midnight marching band parade in downtown Asheville, city resident and Asheville Global Report editor Eamon Martin was arrested by one or more members of the Asheville Police Department (APD).

Martin, who was injured during the arrest, feels both the arrest and the degree of force employed by the police were unjustified.

AGR editor Eamon Martin shortly after being released from police custody on November 1, 2002.

Martin recalls immediatly before his arrest that he stood with his hands in the air and verbally expressed his compliance with the officers.

During his arrest, Martin’s face was thrown against a street curb. As a result, his right eye was so badly swollen that he was unable to open it for three days and was forced to miss a day of work.

Martin recalls the arrival of police as the only down-side to what had been an enjoyable Halloween celebration.
“[The parade] was really large and festive and was making its way through downtown and looked like a lot of fun – and it was. We had a great time. People were just dancing and singing and carrying on to a marching band,” says Martin, who estimates the crowd size at 150 - 200.

“The next thing I know, we were penned in by cops. A cop car was coming up through the parade slowly and telling people to disperse. So, I walked away from the cop car. I was pretty annoyed at this, so I barked out ‘Fuck this,’ and immediately noticed that a cop, who I found out later was Officer D. Loveland, got out of her car.”

Martin then ran from the police. He did this because of “a previous altercation in which I was arrested for watching someone get ticketed and was found guilty. I didn’t want to have that happen again.”

That previous arrest and subsequent conviction left Martin with a cynical view of justice in the city of Asheville. During his trial, he says he observed a disturbing level of apparent camaraderie between his public defender and the officer.

“I got the overall sense, especially from the judge…that city workers are looking out for each other and aren’t going to embarrass each other, or give each other any trouble, to keep the status quo relations of power the way they are,” says Martin, explaining his desire to avoid conflict with the police that early morning last week. “So I tried to avoid arrest. I ran, and thought I was doing what they wanted – I was dispersing.”

Seeing that he was being chased, Martin says he stopped running after about half a block.

“I put both arms in the air, and I said ‘I give up, I’m compliant, I’m compliant,’ and then, about two seconds later, the next thing I know, I’m on the pavement and my head was whacked into the curb.

“My face hit the curb. I’m lucky it wasn’t my teeth or my nose.”

Martin said that when he asked Loveland, “Did you just smack me down on the pavement because I said the word ‘fuck’?” the police officer replied that that was indeed the case.

Martin notes that, although the police “couldn’t hear me say [he was compliant], they could hear me mutter an obscenity from inside a squad car.”

City of Asheville ordinance code Article 1, Sec. 11-9 does forbid “loud or boisterous swearing in any public place in the city,” but Martin was not charged with this offence.

Martin is charged with resist, delay and abstruct. His citation form, as filled out by Officer Loveland, reads that he “Did appear intox [sic] and disruptive in a public place to wit: cursing by saying fuck this when told to dispurse [sic].”

“I had been drinking,” says Martin. “but I don’t know that I would have called myself intoxicated.”

The police report gives no record of Martin being administered a breathalizer or otherwise tested for blood alcohol content.

Also arrested was AGR volunteer Shane Perlowin.

“I was walking down the street and saw Eamon being chased down by some cops and so, like I do for anybody, I walked over [because] I was concerned there wouldn’t be anybody to view what was going on,” Perlowin says.

Perlowin says a police officer threatened him with a tazer gun and announced “I’ll fucking zap your ass,” and ordered Perlowin to back up, which Perlowin says he did.

Perlowin says he was then handcuffed tightly enough to leave bruises and taken to the jail where he says he was groped and sexually harassed by the officer who frisked him.

North Carolina state law allows for the use of force during arrests (NCGS 15a-401(d)) but the document is clear in its prohibition of abuse of such police power: “Nothing in this subdivision [of the general statute] constitutes justification for willful, malicious, or criminally negligent conduct by any person which injures or endangers any person or property, nor shall it be construed to excuse or justify the use of unreasonable or excessive force.”

Asheville’s citywide regulations are even more explicit: “Officers will use only the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve lawful objectives. Any use of excessive force may subject the officer to disciplinary action, civil damages, and criminal prosecution.” (Policy Number: 1030)

The same document states that “Whenever any officer uses any force that results in…serious physical injury to another person, the Chief or his designee will place the officer on administrative leave or assign him to duties that do not require carrying a firearm, until completion of the investigation. [And] relieve the officer of his weapon after the incident…Any officer involved..[shall] attend a preliminary counseling session with the Employee Assistance Program.”

As of press time, the APD did not provide the AGR with requested information regarding Officer Loveland or other officers present at Martin’s arrest in relation to these regulations.

The APD’s “Mission,” “Values,” and “Guiding Principals” include the following:

• “We subscribe to the principle that services will be delivered in a manner which preserves and upholds democratic values within our neighborhoods.”
• “The mission of the Asheville Police Department is to provide community leadership, to promote individual responsibility, and a commitment to improving the City’s quality of life through crime control and public safety while serving all people with fairness and respect.”
• “We believe that quality service is achieved by… maintaining the highest standards of honesty, trustworthiness, and mutual respect.”
• “The Asheville Police Department [work is] consistent with the following principles: Respect for human rights…” [Italics added].

Martin says he encountered little respect, fairness, or regard for his human rights during his experience and notes that he feels the behavior of the APD resembled that of “bullies who could exercise brutality with impunity…I found my rights to be very flexible and highly negotiable as far as they were concerned.”

After being held for three or four hours, Martin was released.
“
Right before they let me go, one of the corrections officers said something to the effect of ‘Are you gonna sue us? Don’t sue us. I mean, you can go ahead and sue us, but you’re not gonna win, because we’re well protected and backed by the state,’” he says, noting “I was slightly amused by this remarkable honesty.”