LeMonde on Seattle

[Nathan Newman]

[With BabelFish translation on non-English sources]

LeMonde- France:

" Of the citizens, not of the consumers ": 40 000 demonstrators in Seattle
Updated Wednesday December 1, 1999

Seattle of our special correspondents Patrice de Beer and Laurence Caramel

Seattle spent the night of Tuesday November 30 to Wednesday December 1 under
the emergency state. A curfew was declared and the national Guard mobilized
to face new demonstrations. The day of opening of the conference of the
world Organization of trade (OMC) in the presence of representatives of one
hundred trente-cinq country was completed in spectacular fiasco for the
organizers and triumph for its opponents. The downtown area was paralysed
while, in a close stage, tens of thousands of trade unionists required " a
trade right, not a free trade ".

The opening ceremony had to be cancelled, the delegates being in the
incapacity to cross the stoppings of demonstrators and the wall of bus which
surrounded the Paramount room where it was to be held. Some had arrived
inside, through the kitchens of a hotel or while climbing walls. It was not
the case of the high-speed motorboats of this missed inauguration: Kofi
Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, and the Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, which set out again in Washington before the opening of
the conference. The crossroads were held by a variegated crowd carrying of
the anti-OMC signs. Demonstrators were disguised, who in condom, which as a
Father Christmas, singing, shouting, dancing, and not letting pass anybody.
Police officers in futuristic uniforms, pointing out those of the Star Wars,
protected the center from conferences.

**time-out** if the work of OMC have can begin Tuesday afternoon, the
demonstrator have promise to return the following day " The event be
everywhere in the street, explain a demonstrator, we be there to give the
word with those which it have never and so that the OMC hear the voice of
citizen " The protester claim the right of all to control the decision of
organization multilateral " We be some citizen, not some consumer ", " they
say " globalisons ", we say " organize " " or " the law of multinational be
not that of democracy ": as many slogans translating the concern of the
opponents to universalization, version OMC.

The lack of transparency of the institution, its supranational capacity with
the contempt of the sovereignty of the States are violently denounced by the
students and the ecologists " the operation of OMC is antidemocratic. Those
which decide were not elected. I do not want that they can impose their
choice to me ", known as Mary, twenty years, whereas it had just taken with
part one Norwegian delegates who, like the majority of his counterparts,
could not join the official enclosure. This Scandinavian official delegate
lent himself to the dialogue, deploring to him also the opacity of OMC.
Others were shown less patient: " I include/understand the demonstrations,
but the Summit of Seattle east one of the rare occasions for the small
countries to be made hear; Is needed that we can take part in the
discussions ", regretted an official delegate of the Ivory Coast. Others
deputy, very dissatisfied, complained about the incurie font.

The students of Seattle were them also mobilized, including certain students
of commercial schools. Those of the university of Washington and Seattle
Central Community College had given go to their comrades other States. Matt,
twenty-two years, from Alaska, holds up a sign " do not sell off our future!
". It explains why, like his buddies, it feels citizen of the world and that
it expresses for weakest, for the backup of the environment and the rights
of the workers. Others were more violent one like these small groups of
breakers who, facing the anger of the demonstrators, broke the panes of
department stores of the center. Brutal also sometimes the font, which did
not hesitate to play of the bludgeon or to sprinkle the crowd of a gas
containing Mexican pepper. She released with force the places before the
curfew.

During the morning, the trade unionists had gathered with the call of the
AFL-CIO to hear their leaders and testimonys of trade unionists of the Third
World. Mexicans vêtus of Indian costumes protested against their starvation
wages. A militant of Barbados affirmed that " this demonstration is not that
of the Americans or Europeans, it is that of the workers of the whole world,
Noirs like White, come to say: with the devil OMC! ". a speaker pointed out
that in this period of purchases of Christmas, " of the children of
Bangladesh rise in middle of the night to manufacture for our children of
the toys with which they will never be likely to play ". The president of
the trade union of the dockers announced the blocking of the ports of the
Pacific. The trade unionists present defend the rights of the workers and
the environment, but also the protection of American employment. The trade
unionists then started themselves, behind a line of Harley-Davidson motor
bikes, to cross half of the city, the rain having ceased falling. In the
procession, one recognized in particular John Sweeney, president of the
AFL-CIO, and José Bové. Crowd was very diverse, of all ages and colors. In
addition to the escouades of trade-union militants, one found mothers with
their children, of the old ladies, the defenders of the animals, the
partisans of the independence of Tibet or Taiwan, of the Indians of
America...

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