Wall Street Journal - September 20, 1999
ACTIVISTS' BOOT CAMP TEACHES HOW TO CONFRONT TRADE LEADERS
By Helene Cooper Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal
"They're tryin' to take control To do as they please Globalizing power For their Corporate Sleaze So WTO Your plan has got to go Take back the power! End Corporate Greed! (Refrain)"
PRAGTRI FARM, Wash. -- It starts as a low rumble, buzzing through this bucolic valley and into the surrounding hills. Then, a loud wail pierces the air. For a full three minutes, 120 people, holding hands around their Fire Circle, hum, then scream, and finally, howl.
Then, the mission statements begin.
"I'm here to put my body against the machine and stop it!"
"I'm here to put a stake in the heart of the WTO!"
"I'm here because I believe in compost, not commerce!"
John Sellers, the 32-year-old coordinator of the gathering, raises his arms in a V-for-victory gesture. "The last wave of conquistadors is coming to our shores, and it's our responsibility as activists to repel this wave!"
So begins the first full day of Globalize This! Action Camp, a weeklong training camp for free-trade foes that 160 left-leaning activists have registered to attend. If it still isn't apparent, their mission is to raise a ruckus when heads of state and cabinet ministers from 134 countries meet in Seattle in November to launch a new round of global-trade talks under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. If these free-trade foes have their way, delegates will be met by a massive, nonviolent protest by the Puget.
Urban Climbers
But even antitrade warriors have to go to boot camp to train, and Globalize This Action Camp, sponsored by a group aptly named the Ruckus Society, is where it's at. Since last Thursday, the activists, mostly in their 20s and 30s, have been holed up here on this 20-acre farm on the edge of the Cascade Mountains. They have been conducting training sessions in rock climbing, (the better to scale buildings in downtown Seattle) rappelling (the better to hang anti-WTO banners from the city's many bridges) and "direct-action techniques" (for disrupting the meeting).
They've been poring over Seattle street maps to plot strategy. They've staged elaborate role-playing exercises, to learn maneuvers designed to outsmart the city's police. And they've been brainstorming, refining and rejecting ideas for their planned civil protest. Filling cars with cement? Maybe, but that could alienate the general public. Chaining themselves to various building? Definitely, but they first must figure out which "lock-down" technique to use. An aerial assault, possibly some parachutes? Get real. Billboard liberation? Oh, yes.
Some strategy sessions -- such as the those in which activists choose specific targets or locations for their acts of protests -- are secret, lest Seattle's finest be alerted. "We don't want you to be able to publish a map saying we plan to hit this or that building in downtown Seattle," Mr. Sellers says, in refusing an observer entry to one such session.
'All the Bad Guys'
Even so, a certain giddiness permeates the camp, as the activists, representing causes ranging from environmental protection to human rights, come together against the Geneva-based organization they view as their common enemy.
"The WTO is like this historic, wonderful thing, because it's all the bad guys getting together in one place," says Leonie Sherman, a Santa Cruz, Calif., activist and author of the anti-WTO cheer. "Basically, no matter what issue you're into, the World Trade Organization is ripping it apart."
The way the activists see it, the WTO, founded in 1994 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, has been on a five-year rampage. Environmentalists are enraged that the WTO has ruled that U.S. laws protecting endangered sea turtles and promoting clean air, to name two, violate free-trade rules. Labor activists say the WTO encourages manufacturers to relocate textile and factory jobs to low-wage countries. And human-rights activists say the organization should refuse to do business with countries with poor human-rights records. (The WTO, for its part, says such environmental, social and political matters are beyond its purview, and the WTO's backers credit the organization's support for free trade with leading to unprecedented economic growth around the world.)
Ruckus, which is based in Berkeley, Calif., aims to teach its campers how to stop -- or, at least, disrupt -- all that. Days are organized down to the minute. At seven each morning, trainers-many with walkie-talkies-troop through the tent sites beating pots and pans. Breakfast is granola or pancakes. (The food here is strictly vegetarian, with some vegan options, though some campers stash beef jerky in their tents.)
After breakfast, campers head for the two climbing areas, dubbed Ewok Village (tree climbing) or the Tower of Babble, a 40-foot column on which they practice "urban climbing techniques." With his mild-mannered demeanor, his glasses and his bashful grin, climbing coordinator Mike Sowle looks more like an insurance adjuster than a hell-raiser, but he quickly dispels any impression that he is conservative with references to "the Man;" urban conspiracy slang for Corporate (and white) America. Mr. Sowle wants the activists to become so comfortable hanging from the tops of scaffolding that by the time they get to Seattle, the climbing will be second nature to them, and they can concentrate on other things: namely, hanging their banners from the tops of tall buildings.
Contemplating Arrest
Dennis Moynihan, a free-trade foe from Boston, is eager to get up to business. He tried scaling a building in Boston once to hang a banner, but didn't make it to the top, so he knows he has a lot to learn. For the WTO in Seattle, he says, he's "willing to get arrested, to take a misdemeanor charge. I don't have a wife and kids or anything, so it's OK."
Over in the Ewok Village, a whooping Leonie Sherman careens from tree to tree, sliding a rope. Such tree slides, explains trainer Chris Crews of Athens, Ohio, are useful to train the activists to swing from building to building.
Among this group, many boasting FBI files, getting arrested is a badge of honor. A session on nonviolent civil disobedience, during which group members are asked to describe their scariest direct-action moments, goes like this: "I'm Andy from Devon, England. My scariest direct-action moment was climbing the House of Commons, and the police wanted to cut the rope."
"I'm Phillippa from Victoria. The most scary moment was when I was first arrested when I was 11 years old, and I realized how much power I had."
"I'm Nadine from the Free Republic of Takoma Park," Md. "I was fortunate enough to drive an inflatable boat with a Tahitian into a nuclear test site in the Pacific. They had to postpone the test for a day."
Visitors from all walks of the activist world pop into Pragtri Farm (Prag = People's Revolutionary Action Group, Tri = which, the farm's owners say is Sanskrit for "spirit of"). There are visiting dignitaries from various human-rights organizations and artists to inspire the group to more ruckus.
Mealtimes aren't wasted on just eating -- there is more strategy to plot. Under a colorful sign proclaiming "Resist the WTO," the group debates the central question: What to do in Seattle? "We could take oil drums, fill them with cement, and chain ourselves to them," is one suggestion. Or dress up like various WTO demons (the organization's new director-general Michael Moore is often mentioned) and parade through the streets, with frequent stops to drop down trousers. One activist admonishes the group to, "try not to get arrested before the 28th" of November, when the WTO meeting starts, lest there be fewer activists around to cause a ruckus when real arrest-time comes.
There is much sighing in anticipation when Alli Starr, a San Francisco activist, says she's heard that WTO bigwigs are planning a cocktail party on Nov. 29. "OK, that cocktail party is just screaming for an action," says Juliette Beck, another Bay Area activist. Ms. Beck's colleague is the colorful Kevin Danaher -- a dead ringer for TV's "Kojak," Telly Savalas -- who has been working on the sound bites he plans to use on the media during the coming protests.
Here goes: The WTO, Mr. Danaher says, is like a drunk bus driver, running amok through decades of environmental statutes. "We've got to get that drunk bus driver out of the seat and put a sober bus driver in before that drunk bus driver kills us all," he says, grinning.