TABD meets resistance
in Cincinnati

By Shawn Gaynor

Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 19-- Over 120 corporate CEO’s gathered in Cincinnati this week for the sixth annual meeting of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) as anti-globalization protesters took to the streets. Over 1,500 protesters participated in a blitz of actions and marches across the city aimed at exposing the agenda and power of the TABD. Throughout the meetings, tensions ran high between protesters and the Cincinnati police department, which has been embroiled in controversy after local police killed two black men in separate incidents this past week.

Wherever the powerful global trade organization went, it was followed by protest and unrest. On the opening day of the meetings, over a thousand protesters from unions, environmental organizations, and anti-capitalist groups marched in solidarity to the Omni center where the TABD was meeting and staying.

The TABD, composed solely of CEO’s from Europe and the United States, characterizes itself as “little brother” to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Like the WTO it supports an agenda of trade liberalization, industry deregulation, and the privatization of public institutions. Reportedly over fifty percent of the groups past recommendations have been adopted by the WTO. According to Jerome Monod, a TABD member, “the TABD is undoubtedly the non-governmental organization with the greatest access to political institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.”

As the rally at the Omni center broke up, scores of union members and anarchists returning from a rally followed Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) director Baldemar Velasquez, on a breakaway march to the Krogers corporate headquarters. FLOC urged Krogers to remove the Mt. Olive pickles from their shelves. Steve Steel, an organizer for the Mt. Olive pickle boycott, said, “Economic globalization has displaced farmers throughout Mexico and Central America, forcing them to take temporary jobs at below minimum wage for companies like Mt. Olive Pickle. These workers are then forced through global purchasing strategies to compete with farm workers world wide. Farm workers producing pickles in Sri Lanka make as little as 15 cents a day, and this creates a race to the bottom for farm workers in America.” In a clear display of community mistrust and anger, people reacted to police harassment at Krogers headquarters by shouting “Murderers!” and chanting, “Cops and the Klan go hand in hand.”

In another incident Thursday, CEO’s and trade representatives enjoying a concert at the Cincinnati Music Hall were treated to a speech against globalization when two activists dropped a banner that read “End Corporate Rule” inside the theater, and spoke to the audience about the TABD’s powerful role in globalization. The two were arrested by 18 police officers as a protest continued outside.
On Friday, protesters took to the streets again. Protesters raised their voices at a large rally at the Omni Center criticizing the TABD and many of the corporations represented. Robert Peterson, a member of the United Auto Workers Union from Indianapolis, said “The CEOs from Europe and US are meeting with trade reps. They’re asking for deregulation, to get rid of workers’ rights and environmental regulations.”

As the rally broke up, 300 anti-capitalist “black bloc” activists marched through the downtown finacial district chanting, “In all your decadence, people die!” The march was halted by police on Fourth and Vine. Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Strietcher ordered officers to halt and disperse the march. One woman holding her two year old child was told by police, “If you take another step, I’m going to mace your baby and it will be your fault.” Two random men grabbed from the front of the crowd were beaten and arrested by police as well.

One witness, British journalist Chris Parry, reported, “The gentleman concerned was prone, face down on the road, his neck was stepped on and his face driven into the blacktop. As he bled onto the road surface and had his arms twisted behind his back, he was sprayed directly into the face with mace. This man was in no way resisting, nor was he in any position to fight back or escape. He was undoubtedly restrained and expecting to be detained. Yet, more police piled on to the back of this man, one stepped on the back of his knee, another held his knee firmly into the man’s spine. I’ve witnessed arrests before and can attest that even thirty seconds after this gentleman would have been classed as restrained, police continued to beat him with batons, step on arms and legs.”

As protesters attempted to disperse, police opened fire, beating protesters with batons, shooting riot shotgun “bean bags,” and using tear gas against the demonstrators. Dozens of protesters were detained and eventually allowed to leave one by one with orders not to reassemble, while others fled the police rampage. Some business windows were broken in the melee, but it is unclear if these windows were broken by police or protesters. According to an Associated Press report, Police Chief Streitcher said windows had been broken by protesters, and police had recovered bean bags filled with metal pellets from the broken windows. When asked, the police department failed to produce the bean bags, or explain how they differed in character from those shot from police shotguns.

When Lt. Ruberg, a police spokesman, was asked by media why the march was being broken up he replied, “Well the thing... they had a parade permit to come to Fountain Square from Sawyer Point, but they never had one to go back. That was the problem.”

Friday night, regrouped protesters and police had a tense stand-off at Union Terminal as protesters attempted to draw attention to the trade delegation dining at a dinner hosted by Governor Bob Taft. Lines of riot police kept protesters well away from the dinner, at one point trapping them in a tunnel nearby. “We’re following every safety and legal limit guys are setting for us and yet you still won’t let us protest in sight of TABD delegates,” said Cairns, a protester and Cincinnati resident.

One protester, George Mallor of Philadelphia, said of the corporations represented in the TABD, “They’re feeding people poison food, poison environment, poison air, people are downtrodden and we are fighting back.”

Saturday, protesters took to the streets once again converging on Fountain Park. Giant puppets of pigs, representing greed and corporate welfare, had been brought along, branded with the names of corporations participating in the meetings. Police had built a barricaded “protest pit” area in Fountain Park. Everyone who attempted to enter the Fountain Park area was stopped by police and searched. This was despite a legal permit to assemble. “The Constitution allows for the freedom of assembly and movement,” said Don McKenzie, a Springfield Township sheet-metal worker. “I’ve been searched, told I can’t walk in a certain place and just been harassed. This is the most intimidating police presence I’ve ever seen.” One elderly woman with an American flag had it taken by police reportedly because it could be used as a weapon. Another protester with an Anarchist flag was told to remove the flagpole from it. After complying, he was arrested anyway for allegedly violating a city ordinance against sticks in Fountain Square. Protesters inside the “pit” listened to speeches presented by the Coalition for Human Economy, a local union coalition. Many protesters refused to submit to the search and remained outside the “pit” area. One protester who remained outside was arrested for disorderly conduct when he began to shout “This is what a police state looks like!”

Protesters then began a permitted march to place corporate pig puppets outside of several corporate headquarters. After the permitted legal march was rerouted by police, the marchers were ordered to disperse despite cooperation from the crowd. Again police used batons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. In the confusion, police began making arrests.

Simultaneously, a larger march protesting recent police brutality, made its way to the Justice Center downtown. Once the marchers reached the Justice Center, police surrounded the march and held the crowd at gunpoint. According to one protester from Columbus, Ohio, “protesters were threatened with pistols and shotguns held to their heads, police began letting people leave in pairs, but many of these people were arrested just down the street by waiting squads of police.” Over 47 people were arrested Saturday on charges ranging from jay-walking to disorderly conduct.

Speaking about the Saturday rally, Lt. Ruberg said, “The reason we arrested so many more (Saturday) was because we adopted a different posture with them. We decided that we would not be as tolerant as we were on Friday.”

“There was a lot of frustration with the increased police presence,” said Sister Alice Gerdeman of the Coalition for a Humane Economy, which helped organize the protests. “In many ways, the police made the situation more tense.”

Reportedly police misconduct continued in jail. People who refused to give their names to the police were singled out for strip search, and denied their right to a phone call. Other prisoners who were more cooperative and attempting to make bail were also denied use of a phone call. Prisoners being held for charges as trivial as jay-walking were held in solitary lockdown. Some prisoners are still being held, including John Sherman, a Wright State professor vowing to stay on a hunger strike until his trial.

Apparently acting as a spokesperson for the business group, US Commerce Deputy Secretary Robert Mallett said in an interview that the TABD opens doors for American business owners to expand overseas and “lowered the decibel of our disputes. That is what the TABD is meant to do.” Responding to this cozy relationship between government and big business, Rebecca Smith, a student at Bowling Green State University, said, “People aren’t going to stand for corporate rule anymore. Corporations are putting profits over every form of life.”

2,000 arrested at SOA vigil

By Willy Rosencrans

Columbus, Georgia, Nov. 20-- Their spirits undampened by rain and cold, over 10,000 people from across the Americas gathered outside the gates of Ft. Benning this weekend to demand the closure of the School of the Americas. The vigil culminated in a mass act of civil disobedience during which an estimated 3,600 people risked arrest by trespassing onto the fort, bearing crosses with the names of people murdered or “disappeared” by SOA graduates. They were led by a funeral procession of masked and shrouded coffin-bearers who, barred from continuing by a police line, staged a massacre and were immediately arrested. About 2,000 others were also arrested and processed.

“This school is a symbol of oppression in Latin America,” said Oscar Sanchez, a Mexican-American Asheville resident. “This movement unites people for equality and freedom.”

Moving testimony was heard from Latin American guest speakers, including representatives from Mexico and Colombia. Among them was Diego Perez-Jimenez of Las Abejas, an indigenous movement in Chiapas centered on nonviolence and social justice, which lost 45 people, mostly women and children, in the infamous massacre at Acteal. In Chiapas, 300 members of Las Abejas fasted and prayed simultaneously with the action on Sunday; and at great personal risk, Mexican human rights activists planted corn in the soil at a military camp there.

But this year’s vigil was also marked by a festive atmosphere. It began on Saturday with a giant puppet parade, including soldiers, Latin Americans, and a high-spirited revolution bringing up the rear. A pageant followed, during which a model of the SOA was closed. From behind the closed School rose an enormous skull, representing the death-dealing system of power and oppression. Tentacles unfurled from the skull, depicting NAFTA, the drug war, international arms trade, and similarly repressive policies. Finally a nonviolent revolution, led by a twelve-foot tall “Resistance” head, toppled the skull and celebrated a new era of peace and freedom.

Great efforts were made in the weeks and months leading up to the vigil to ensure its success, including nonviolence trainings across the nation, a massive amount of media work, a five-day “puppet convergence,” and intensive meetings on Friday and Saturday for those preparing to cross the line onto the fort.

In a bold departure from previous vigils, a second “high-risk” procession followed the first. Groups involved in the second procession were at liberty to engage in more creative acts of civil disobedience, including planting crosses and burying coffins, planting corn, ignoring police orders to stop, and other high-risk actions. Some lay down and blocked the outgoing road of the fort; ohers re-enacted a Colombian massacre. Despite fears of police brutality, the second procession was peaceful and at times even celebratory, though a “puppet invasion” of the fort did result in damaged and broken puppets.

Members of the processions were offered an ultimatum: leave the base or remain and face certain arrest. (Or, as Maj. Gen. John LeMoyne put it, “I went down ... to open their minds to the other side. And they listened, enough so that 1,400 of them turned around and walked back without breaking the law.”) 2,000 protesters remained on the fort to be arrested. Of these, the majority received letters banning them from the base for five years. One person, whose only crime was to go limp, was charged with assaulting a police officer. Another was arrested for refusing to force another person to comply with a police order. Those who violated the orders of previous “ban and bar” letters face up to 6 months in prison.

Megan Reilly-Buser, an Asheville resident, was detained on post for a few hours. Reilly-Buser, one of the white-masked, black-robed coffin bearers, described the process while sitting on a couch in the SOA Watch Media Center nursing an injured ankle.

“We crossed the line and splattered ourselves with washable paint,” she said. “Then we lay down, and I was asked to get up by an officer. I declined and was put on a stretcher.” Those arrested were taken to a hangar to be processed, or waited in tents. The last of those arrested was released by midnight.

Members of the military went to unusual efforts to evangelize among the protesters. “Father Roy doesn’t want his people to hear the other side,” said LeMoyne, “and frankly, we took advantage of today to do just that.” But these efforts at swaying the hearts of the protestors, occurring against direct testimony as to the SOA’s dismal history of human rights violations, had no noticeable effect. Army officials have acknowledged that they have lost the “information war” to Fr. Roy Bourgeois, founder of the movement to close the School.

Local groups with members traveling to Ft. Benning as part of the WNC SOA Watch included the Asheville War Resisters League, Direct Action Network, Amnesty International, Carolina-Chiapas Connection, International Link, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Earth First, Food Not Bombs, Asheville-area War Tax Resistance, and Just Economics. Members of St. Lawrence Cathedral, Jubilee Community Church, the Unitarian Universalist Church, and Asheville Friends meeting also assisted in the preparation and planning for this event. Nonviolence trainings held throughout the area sponsored by WNC SOA Watch prepared citizens with the fundamentals of the disciplined nonviolent action practiced at the gates of Ft. Benning.