Even as Seattle authorities arrested hundreds in a renewed clampdown on demonstrations, President Clinton warned a meeting of the World Trade Organization on Wednesday that legitimate protesters must have a voice in the debate over the rules of global commerce.
Clinton said it was “unrealistic” to believe that the rules of world trade could continue to be set by political and business elites alone, and that the views of average people must be taken into account.
“I condemn the (protesters) that were violent, but I am glad the others showed up,” the president said. “They represent millions of people who are now asking whether this enterprise will take us where we want to go.”
Protesters claim the WTO is secretive and insensitive to environmental and labor concerns. The meeting in Seattle has been a magnet for tens of thousands of activists.
Seattle police on Wednesday adopted an aggressive technique for dealing with the unruly among them: mass arrests and a clampdown on those who would disrupt their city.
As business owners boarded broken windows, swept thousands of yards of yellow police tape from sidewalks and scrubbed graffiti from walls, large clusters of police and National Guard troops in riot gear lined each downtown intersection on Wednesday.
The city’s new, tougher policy–it essentially outlawed groups from gathering within an 8-square-block section of Seattle–prevented new vandalism to businesses on Wednesday, but it didn’t stop the thousands of animal-rights advocates, environmentalists, farmers and labor activists from marching through Seattle’s streets in protest of WTO policies.
City officials pledged they would be tough on renewed violence.
“Our responses will be swift,” Mayor Paul Schell said. Police Chief Norman Stamper vowed: “We did draw a line in the sand.”
During repeated standoffs with police, hundreds of protesters were warned to leave. Then they were arrested and carted away in buses.
“Shame, shame, shame–the whole world is watching,” one group screamed as officers handcuffed them. In the day’s chilly drizzle, the smells of tear gas and turpentine–used to remove spray paint–wafted through the city.
On one downtown street corner on Wednesday, Vera Boyarsky, a tourist from Australia, watched it all and shook her head. “I find it extremely unacceptable that those young yahoos felt that this was the way to go,” she said. “They damaged their cause.”
The Westin Hotel, where President Clinton stayed, was surrounded by buses. Many businesses chose not to open for business Wednesday. Dozens of chain stores covered windows with plywood, including Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Old Navy, Starbucks, Warner Brothers and Gap Kids.
Other buildings were streaked with spray paint: “No Sweat Shops,” “No WTO,” “Destroy The Gap.”
Still, a mood of defiance persisted among some demonstrators.
“We are non-violent today and we were non-violent yesterday,” David Soletnit, a California activist, boasted over a loudspeaker. “We shut down the World Trade Organization–we will keep it shut down. We’re not going to be intimidated by rubber bullets.”
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“Whose streets?” he called out.
“Our streets” the protesters screamed back.
Under a neon-pink Barbie doll display at FAO Schwarz, police moved in to arrest a man who had been pulling down his pants to reveal welts on his legs–what his friends said were marks from rubber bullets fired the night before.
Police handcuffed him, then shoved him to the ground, face down. The protesters erupted in fury. Police on horses moved in, pushing the crowds away.
“I’m not out there breaking things, but they didn’t have to act like Nazi thugs,” complained 42-year-old George Duke.
Some members of the Direct Action Network–a West Coast coalition of anti-WTO activists who began preparing for this week as long as six months ago–said that violence was never part of the plan, though they were prepared for civil disobedience. The group had organized volunteer nurses for those affected by tear gas, and lawyers for those arrested.
Some protesters blamed Tuesday’s vandalism on a separate group, a small band of self-described anarchists–mostly young men in black clothes and face masks. The pop-culture anarchists’ symbol–an A with a circle around it–was spray-painted on many businesses Tuesday night.
Some protesters condemned the violence. “This totally changes the vibe out here,” Celia Alario, an activist from Berkeley, yelled at one young man. “There’s a very fine line between freedom of speech and trespassing.”
Others, like Reuben Garbanzo, a 36-year-old landscaper and house painter, were ambivalent. “I wouldn’t smash windows myself,” he said, “but when I see Starbucks with broken windows, I don’t shed tears.”
Inside the WTO, delegates gamely tried to continue with business at hand.
Clinton told them the push to open global markets won’t be successful without a broad national and international consensus.
And, he said, the five-year-old WTO, whose meetings and decision-making tribunals are closed to the public, must become more democratic.
“It is imperative that the WTO become more open and accessible,” the president said.
“If the WTO expects to have public support grow for our endeavors, the public must see and hear and in a real sense join in the deliberations. That is the only way they can know the process is fair and their concerns have been considered.”
Ministers from the 135 WTO member nations are meeting this week to set the agenda for a three-year round of trade talks aimed at further liberalizing the terms of world trade. But some core Democratic Party constituencies, such as organized labor and environmentalists, complain that WTO rules have run roughshod over workers’ rights and the environment.
Clinton signaled that the organization must take those concerns seriously.
“To deny the importance of this issue in a global economy is to deny the dignity of work,” the president said. “The answer is not to avoid this issue. The answer is to write the rules in such a way that people in our position, in the wealthier countries, cannot use this as a device for protectionism.”
Clinton also announced a new initiative that would make patented medicines more readily available to less-developed countries, many of whose residents cannot afford costly treatment for AIDS, cancer and other diseases. Previously, the U.S. has cited WTO rules on intellectual property to prevent countries such as South Africa from producing more affordable versions of medicines patented in the West.
Earlier in the day, the president toured a port warehouse holding Washington State apples ready for export. He expressed concern over trade barriers facing American farmers.
“In market after market after market, they face terrible barriers in selling more of their produce,”he said. “We’ve got to find more ways to open more markets.”
But U.S. efforts to open foreign markets to American agricultural products has run into a firestorm of opposition, both inside and outside the WTO.
The U.S. wants to eliminate European export subsidies, reduce agricultural tariffs and open up foreign markets to U.S.-made biotechnology products.
The biotechnology issue has galvanized environmentalists, bringing thousands of protesters to Seattle. Groups such as the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Federation are promoting a global treaty to protect biodiversity and strictly regulate the introduction of genetically modified organisms and seeds into the environment. They adamantly oppose WTO efforts to take up the issue.
The U.S., on the other hand, would like to see WTO agricultural negotiations over the next three years tackle the issue of how to regulate biotechnology. U.S. corporations, such as St. Louis-based Monsanto, are heavily invested in the technology. The U.S. wants WTO rules that prohibit restrictions on such technology unless they are “science-based.”
The U.S. also wants the next round of trade talks to eliminate farm export subsidies, especially in the European Union, as well as reduce farm tariffs in developing countries and eliminate domestic farm programs that encourage overproduction.
The EU is opposing much of the U.S. agenda. “U.S. programs on export credits and export guarantees are equally trade-distorting and we want them included in the discussion,” said Karl Falkenberg, a deputy negotiator in the EU delegation.
He also voiced opposition to putting biotech products on the trade agenda because it “would undermine a multilateral protocol on biosafety.”