CINCINNATI
N16 convergence confronts imperialists
By Elijah
Crane
The new anti-globalization movement--born in the streets
of Seattle one year ago during protests that shut down World
Trade Organization meetings--has wrapped itself around much
of the world from Washington to Prague, Czech Republic, to
Melbourne, Australia. Now it has hit Cincinnati, Ohio.
From Nov. 16 to Nov. 18, youths, environmentalists,
anarchists, socialists and others converged there. They
brought an anti-imperialist, anti-racist and
anti-globalization message to yet another set of closed-door
meetings among imperialist super powers and mega
corporations: the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue.
Activists took to the streets for three days. They rallied
and marched for many issues, including the struggle against
racism and police brutality.
Police arrested several people on the first day of
protests. Among those arrested were activists whose crime was
hanging banners near the hotel where the TABD meetings took
place.
Still more arrests came on Nov. 17. But the biggest blast
by the state against demonstrators came on Nov. 18. On that
day, according to the N16 legal team, cops arrested 100
protesters.
As protesters carried on the spirit of Seattle, so too did
the cops. According to eyewitness accounts posted at the
Independent Media Center's Web site, police sprayed crowds
with tear gas several times. They shot at activists with
rubber bullets at least once.
Julie Fry, a student and Workers World Party organizer
from Michigan who participated in the N16 events, said:
"There weren't mass arrests like D.C. where they surrounded
people and arrested everyone. They just kept picking people
off at the demonstrations and taking them away.
"On Saturday there was a moving picket of about 300-400
people, which received a lot of interest primarily from
African American pedestrians in the downtown area who cheered
us on. The march stopped at the Kroger Co. headquarters but
was diverted by police.
"Some demonstrators turned back to Fountain Square Plaza,
the original rallying site. But others broke off into smaller
groups and continued on various routes."
On Nov. 18, activists march ed to the corporate
headquarters of the Kroger supermarket chain. The Farm Labor
Organizing Committee is leading a boycott of Mount Olive
Pickle Co. where cucumber pickers have been organizing for
union rights. Farm workers have requested that Kroger remove
Mount Olive products from its shelves.
"That day," Fry described, "Fountain Square was surrounded
by police and demonstrators were first frisked if they wanted
to enter the area that they had a permit to be in. Those who
confronted the police were picked off and arrested.
"Many demonstrators chose not to go into the surrounded
area and instead formed a spirited picket outside the police
barricade. Picketers who tried to start chants were also
picked off and arrested by police."
What is the TABD?
TransAtlantic Business Dialogue meetings have gone on
since November 1995, virtually unnoticed by outsiders until
now. The participants include international trade officials
and executives from the mightiest U.S. and European
corporations.
In these meetings, participants "informally" develop trade
agreements favorable to transnational
corporations--agreements, for example, to ease product safety
standards and tariffs.
According to the TABD Web site: "One of the goals of the
TABD is to contribute to the creation of a New Transatlantic
Marketplace (NTM) permitting goods, services and capital to
flow more easily across the Atlantic. The realization of this
goal requires the progressive removal of traditional
transatlantic trade and investment barriers, and the TABD is
contributing in a practical, step-by-step manner."
The TABD claims that the transnationals that make up its
membership provide millions of jobs for workers. But NAFTA
has shown that "free trade" means increased exploitation for
the working class and oppressed.
The TABD is one more tool of capitalist globalization and
imperialist restructuring of the world economy. These
undeniably self-interested corporate mega-executives and
power brokers have proclaimed their private clubs to be
supreme bodies for international policy-making.
These meetings are conducted behind closed doors-- without
the input of the people who will bear the burden of their
decisions. On top of that, those who want to criticize these
programs are physically restrained, brutalized and imprisoned
by the state.
The TABD deems itself fit to overhaul international
agreements regarding product safety regulations,
environmental standards, working conditions, "agri-biotech"
development, pharmaceutical patents and economic
sanctions.
As long as the workers and oppressed continue to be locked
out of the decision-making process that determines the fate
of the planet, the movement will continue to pound harder and
louder on the bolted doors of the imperialists' conference
rooms.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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