GLOBALIZATION FOES PLAN TO PROTEST WTO'S SEATTLE ROUND TRADE TALKS
By Helene Cooper Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
SEATTLE -- Mike Dolan is mobilizing against globalizing.
Descending in a flurry of leaflets on a meeting of the People of Color Against AIDS Network, he gives the activists a quick speech about the evils of drug-company greed and global trade. But Mr. Dolan can't stay long. He still has to hit a gathering of representatives from Friends of the Earth, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom and a group against hazardous-waste dumping called Toxics.
During a three-week blitz of Seattle, Mr. Dolan, field director of Global Trade Watch -- an offshoot of Ralph Nader's consumer group Public Citizen that is the scourge of free-traders the world over -- meets with just about every activist in town, from eco-warriors to carpenters opposing unchecked capitalism.
Not even the clergy is exempt. Mr. Dolan is especially effective during a quick meeting with the Rev. Kathlyn James of downtown Seattle's massive First United Methodist Church. After asking Mr. Dolan to "Help me to know what it is," that is the root of so much dissent, Ms. James enthusiastically agrees to pitch in. "We can get involved," she says. "It would be a wonderful ecumenical effort if we could get all the different churches to -- what was it? -- mobilize against globalization."
The focus of Mr. Dolan's frenzy is the World Trade Organization -- the Geneva-based supreme court of international trade -- which is coming to Seattle in November for the biggest trade gathering ever held on U.S. soil. About 5,000 delegates from 150 countries will descend on this city to launch a new round of global trade talks -- thence to be known as the Seattle Round. Like the Uruguay Round begun in 1986 and the Tokyo Round started in 1973, the Seattle Round will look to slash tariffs, abolish subsidies and open up investment for companies seeking to get into global markets.
Leaving a Legacy
"One hundred years from now," Sen. Patty Murray of Washington recently enthused at a dress-rehearsal trade conference leading up to the WTO event, "our grandchildren will be talking about the Seattle Round."
If Mr. Dolan has his way, future generations will be talking all right, but it won't be about tariff cuts. "Those faceless bureaucrats are leaving Geneva and they'll be met with a protest by the Puget," he says. "We're going to have marches and demonstrations and press conferences and seminars. It's going to be a massive mobilization against globalization."
As Mr. Dolan and others like him see it, the Seattle gathering is the ultimate chance to stem a tide of international corporate greed that is destroying the environment, sending developing countries deeper into poverty and generally running amok. "The World Trade Organization represents a model of international commercial relations that benefit a very narrow range of civil society: transnational corporations," he says.
With President Clinton, Vice President Gore and a host of foreign dignitaries expected to come, the free-trade foes say this is their moment to strike a blow. By all accounts, demonstrators will outnumber trade envoys from the 150 countries in attendance. The list of angry protesters keeps growing: Steelworkers, livid that both President Clinton and Congress in June refused to endorse a bill putting quotas on steel imports, have already reserved 1,000 hotel rooms in nearby Tacoma and Bellevue to help house the thousands who plan to make the trip. Longshoremen say they are bringing 3,000 to 5,000.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth activists are leading the environmental brigades. Labor representatives from India, militant anticapitalists from Germany and AIDS activists from New York are all busy making plans to, among other things, form a human chain around the Washington State Trade & Convention Center in downtown Seattle, where the WTO conference will be held. There are even whispers among the free-trade foes that the Zapatistas, southern Mexico's peasant-based rebel group, are coming by caravan.
International trade bureaucrats and lawyers are already bracing themselves. "We're going to get some real blood and guts," says Washington, D.C., trade economist Gary Hufbauer.
Smoke Bombs, Spray Paint
Protestors have already held one test run: In June, as leaders from the Group of Eight industrial nations were meeting in Cologne, Germany, rioters there and in London and New York staged a synchronized Carnival Against Capitalism. London's financial district was the hardest hit: About 4,000 protesters, some with signs reading "Make Love, Not Profit," set off smoke bombs, smashed windows and spray-painted graffiti on the Bank of England. After an invasion of rioters, the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange abandoned after-hours trading and evacuated 400 of its staff.
Many activists say Seattle will see a much bigger ruckus. Indeed, one group, aptly called Ruckus, already is planning training sessions to demonstrate tactics for blockades and other forms of civil disobedience.
Seattle police officers say they are prepared for whatever happens. "We have access to pepper spray," says Officer Carmen Best, a spokeswoman for the department. The police department has set up a WTO planning commission, which is coordinating with the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and numerous other law-enforcement types. Officer Best says Seattle's aim is to let protesters exercise their right to free speech, but notes, pointedly, "Our SWAT team is flexible."
On Their Side
As it happens, the protesters already have the Seattle City Council and King County Council on their side. Known for their environmental bent, both government groups recently voted unanimously to make the city a "MAI-Free Zone," ostensibly to prohibit the WTO from reaching any Multilateral Agreements on Investment during the November gathering. While the move is largely symbolic, city and county council members have been busy working with the protesters. At a recent lunch at a Pioneer Square Italian restaurant, Mr. Dolan and four council members hold a strategy session. King County Councilman Brian Derdowski, the Republican who championed the MAI-Free Zone proposal, is particularly excited. "If there are police officers walking around, then there should be elected officials in the street standing with the people," he says.
Mr. Derdowski frets over how to get folks from his affluent conservative district on Seattle's East Side to join with the mostly left-leaning protesters. "We need a diversity of protests," he says. One possibility offered by his staffer, Maria Cain: Get buttoned-down David Korten, author of the antiglobalization bestseller "When Corporations Rule the World," to speak to conservatives. "He fits the image they can accept," Ms. Cain says.
She is on a roll now. "If we can help the people in the suburbs to understand why people are p_____ off, causing a ruckus in Seattle, maybe they'll come join," she says. "Maybe we could close I-90. That way, they can walk into Seattle -- the East Side people. These people aren't going to drive into town when all these demonstrations are going on."
For Mr. Dolan, this is all sweet music, though he doesn't take much time to savor it before dashing off to his next stop, to close a deal on office space that his group can use during the WTO gathering.
"This is nice," Mr. Dolan says, as he surveys the neighborhood from in front of the office -- a storefront in downtown Seattle next to a Harley-Davidson shop. "It's a stone's throw, figuratively speaking, from the trade and convention center."