[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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