Activists fight corporate globalization
by Brendan Conley

Washington, DC, April 20-- Thousands of protesters descended on Washington, DC this past weekend for several days of demonstrations, nonviolent civil disobedience, and scattered street fights with police. Though the direct action failed to shut down meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) taking place in the city, the demonstrations disrupted "business as usual" in Washington and turned a spotlight on IMF and World Bank policies that often harm people in the third world.

Actions ranged from small demonstrations and marches to a rally of more than ten thousand, and civil disobedience actions that resulted in mass arrests. Washington police used pepper spray and tear gas against protesters, and struck both demonstrators and reporters with riot batons. The police made 1,300 arrests over the course of three days.

"We have thought it wise at this point in history to stand up for justice," said Oronto Douglas of Nigeria, on the eve of the protests. "The issues at stake are life and death." The demonstrations were organized by a broad coalition of students, environmentalists, labor unions, and spokespersons for people in the third world. The protesters represented what some called a "unified movement," and others called a "raft of disparate causes," but they were united in condemning the IMF and World Bank.

The IMF and World Bank are powerful financial institutions with global reach. When poor countries’ governments can’t repay loans, these institutions offer so-called "bailout" loans. This money, however, comes with strings attached -- austerity measures known as structural adjustment programs (SAPs). When SAPs are imposed on third world countries, health and education programs are cut and people’s basic needs are ignored, in favor of paying the interest on the debt. The World Bank and IMF also fund development projects. Some of these are beneficial to third world countries, but critics claim that many are oversized dams and mining projects that harm the environment.

Chronology

Actions leading up to the April 16 action included an April 9 demonstration organized by Jubilee 2000 demanding debt relief for poor countries, an April 14 rally against the proposed Ballistic Missile Defense system, otherwise known as Star Wars, and an April 15 march against sweatshop labor that targeted trendy Georgetown clothing shops.

On Saturday, April 15, nearly a thousand people gathered in front of the US Justice Department to protest the "prison-industrial complex." The activists said that the plight of US political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, the two million people held captive in US prisons, and the policies of the IMF and World Bank, are all symptoms of a "capitalist police state." The protesters vowed to shut down "the whole damn system." As it happened, the system fought back.

As the activists surged through the streets of Washington in a spontaneous march, DC police struck them with riot batons and drove their motorcycles into the crowd in an attempt to force them out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Police in riot gear formed a blockade at both ends of a block of 20th Street near IMF headquarters, penning in several hundred demonstrators, members of the press, and innocent bystanders. A tense standoff ended with a mass arrest of 600 people.

At dawn on Sunday, April 16 – or "A16" as the Mobilization for Global Justice referred to it – several thousand protesters took direct action, forming blockades at 18 Washington intersections in order to prevent delegates from attending the spring meeting of the IMF. Though a handful of delegates were kept out or delayed, the meeting went on. Police had formed a blockade of their own, closing a 40-square block area surrounding the IMF and World Bank headquarters, effectively thinning the mass of demonstrators. The delegates, for the most part, simply got up an hour earlier than the protesters and rode from their hotels to the meeting under police escort.

Daylight on Sunday brought a festival atmosphere to the streets, as protesters sang, chanted, and paraded through the city with puppets and costumes. "Spank the bank!" chanted a group of students as several young men and women removed their shirts to reveal lettering on their backs: "IMF wants the shirt off my back." The "Seattle Raging Grannies" sang an anti-corporate chorus as a circle of 20 protesters chained their arms together in the middle of an intersection.

At times the protesters grew more militant, wrestling with people who tried to penetrate their blockades and chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets!" in tense confrontations with police. Anarchists of the "black bloc" rushed police lines near Farragut Square, prompting police to use tear gas and batons on the crowd.

In the meantime, a rally and permitted march of ten thousand people took place on the Ellipse, south of the White House. Labor leaders, environmentalists, and representatives of third world countries decried corporate globalization. "The IMF, World Bank, and WTO subordinate our democratic processes here and around the world to the imperatives of commercial trade," said Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and Green Party Presidential candidate. "They are basically entrenching conditions that breed horrible poverty and injustice."

On April 17, as scattered marches and skirmishes with police took place throughout the city, several thousand protesters took over Washington streets in a spontaneous march that blocked traffic for 15 blocks. Stunned motorists found themselves engulfed by the crowd, prompting reactions ranging from businessmen who quickly locked their car doors to a Jamaican man who rolled down the window of his delivery van to chat with the marchers. "I think it’s great," he said. "They are trying to help the people in the third world."

The march ended at a police blockade at 20th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. After a rowdy shoving match between police and protesters, a show of force by National Guard troops, and police use of pepper spray, an agreement that led to peaceful, voluntary arrests was reached. Similar agreements at other tension points led to 600 arrests for civil disobedience on Monday. Activists agreed to voluntary arrests as a way of going on record as having attempted to block the World Bank meeting taking place behind police lines.

Though the demonstrations were smaller and less effective than those that shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle last November, the protesters claimed to have successfully brought the "spirit of Seattle" to Washington. "Seattle was a coming-out party for the other globalization: grassroots globalization," said Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange. "We are winning the public over to our democratic values."

Police tactics

Officers of the DC Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Secret Service, and National Guard were deployed in Washington to combat a nonviolent movement against corporate globalization. The police were successful in diminishing the effectiveness of the direct action, in part through the use of tactics like violence, spying, search and seizure, and preventing free assembly.
"There have been many abuses of people’s legal rights," said Eric Jacobson, a Los Angeles lawyer working as a legal observer during the demonstrations. "There has not been adequate training in restraint and respect for people’s first amendment rights."

One of those rights that DC police violated is the right to peaceful assembly. Activists who attempted to hold meetings in city parks were told that public gatherings of more than 25 people were illegal. Police prevented people from gathering on public streets and sidewalks in the vicinity of the World Bank and IMF headquarters throughout the weekend.

Constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure did not prevent police from searching two vehicles on U Street on the night of April 12, and seizing materials from the passengers that police said activists could use to lock themselves to objects or each other. Police arrested seven people, charging them with possessing "implements of crime" – chicken wire, duct tape, and plastic pipes.

Kent Richards of Asheville was one of those arrested. "The police never told me I was under arrest, never read me my rights, and never let me make a phone call," he said. Richards said that a police informant infiltrated an activist blockade training and learned where the materials were being kept. Indeed, the prosecution’s case against Richards states that a "witness" attended an activist training session, and describes a police stakeout of the warehouse where the materials were kept.

Police disrupted protesters’ plans by shutting down their "convergence space" headquarters on Saturday morning and confiscating their equipment, including medical supplies. The police said that they had to shut down the building because of a fire hazard. Corey-Pine Shane, an Asheville herbalist, said that police seized over $1,000 worth of herbal first aid supplies belonging to him, and would not return them until after the protest. "A judge decreed that the seizure was illegal and the police had to give the equipment back," said Shane. "But when we got to the police warehouse, they said the door was locked and they didn’t have the key."

Police used violence against protesters throughout the weekend. Police shoved and struck people with their riot batons, drove motorcycles into crowds of people, and sprayed tear gas and pepper spray. Shane said that the first aid team treated numerous people for injuries. "We saw two people come in who had been batoned in the head, one person whose arm was possibly fractured by a baton, and two people who had been pepper sprayed and tear gassed," he said.

Once in jail, away from media cameras, protesters endured more police violence. US Marshals and police beat the imprisoned protesters, and denied them food, water, access to bathrooms, and access to their lawyers. Protesters said they witnessed people being kicked, punched in the face, and slammed into walls.
Lying was a tactic employed by police on the public relations front. Police claimed that they ordered protesters to disperse before the mass arrest on Saturday, but many witnesses, including marchers, reporters, and tourists, said that no such order was given. Minutes after the fight at Farragut Square on Sunday, where police fired tear gas into the crowd, a police spokesperson claimed that no tear gas was used, saying that "someone else" had fired it. Many witnesses, including reporters, said that they saw tear gas come from behind police lines. Later, police admitted that they had fired tear gas in that incident, "by mistake."

"Building the revolution"

If, as activists claim, Seattle was the "coming-out party" for the movement against corporate globalization, then DC was in some ways the morning after: activists faced challenges, work, and a long road ahead. In the face of a powerful system of global control, people are building an inclusive movement, and a revolutionary vision.

For many, the way of organizing itself is revolutionary. In Asheville, a week before the protests began, twelve activists met in a Montford house to form an affinity group – a group of people who know and trust each other and pledge to work together and support each other. The activists discussed transportation and lodging for their planned trip to Washington, and what each person’s role and responsibilities would be. The group made their decisions by informal consensus – a process that includes the concerns of each participant in the group decision.

In Washington, the consensus process was repeated and amplified. A group of people from the Asheville "cluster" met on Friday to coordinate the actions of several affinity groups and "flying squads" made up of Asheville residents. The group elected a "spokes" to represent them in the "spokescouncil" meeting that night, a meeting of several hundred people that operated according to consensus process. Beth Trigg, an Asheville activist who attended the meeting, said, "The consensus process comes from Quakerism and feminism and anarchism. We are pulling together all those traditions into our new way of making decisions."

Trigg’s affinity group participated in one of the blockades on Sunday. During the action, some independent protesters dragged cars into the street, and overturned a dumpster. The group held a spontaneous meeting to discuss what to do about it. "It was a real example of the means being the ends," said Trigg. "The way we were making decisions is the way we are proposing that decisions be made in the world we are trying to build." In the end, a compromise was reached: the dumpster would remain, but the group would not permit it to be set afire.

Trigg said that when police asked to speak to the protesters’ leader, many people responded, "We have no leaders." For her, the answer is more complex: "Everyone was a leader. Leadership and power was shared among everyone. This is the vision that a lot of us have of how to build community and build the revolution."

In a way, the vision of interlocking and concentric circles is repeated even on the global level. "This movement is a coalition of coalitions," said Kevin Danaher. "How amazing is that?"

In addition to organizing their movement according to cooperative principles, the activists are building a vision of the future. Dennis Brutus, a South African activist, said, "We have to define very clearly, not only what we are against, but what we are for." For Brutus, that vision is still being formed. "Whatever our vision will be, it must be created through consensus," he said.

At a forum on Friday, activist scholars from the International Forum on Globalization began to move that process forward. They circulated a paper entitled "Beyond the WTO: Alternatives to Economic Globalization." The paper outlines principles of a just world, as the scholars see it: democracy, sustainability, human rights, local economic strength, economic equity, and biological and cultural diversity.

For many of the activists, the process of public, open debate is the very way to build the participatory democracy they favor. At the rally on Sunday, filmmaker Michael Moore stressed the importance of activism. "If we’re not active citizens, this is no longer a democracy," he said.

Brendan Conley
bconley@agrnews.org