Movement vs. capitalist globalization
Coming next: Battle of Quebec
April 20-22 actions planned in Canada, Mexico and U.S.
By Sarah
Sloan
In April 2001--one year after protests rocked the meetings
of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in
Washington--activists from the anti-globalization movement will
again rise up in protest outside a meeting of capitalist
vultures.
This time it's the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City,
Canada--a meeting of heads of state and trade ministers
representing every country in the Western Hemisphere except
socialist Cuba. There they will discuss the Free Trade Area of
the Americas.
While all of the countries to be represented are capitalist
countries, most are also oppressed nations dominated by the
United States and other imperialist powers.
What is the FTAA?
Like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the
FTAA is a plan to facilitate the expansion of finance capital,
especially by the United States. The FTAA is meant to expand
the NAFTA model to all 34 countries in Western Hemisphere
except Cuba, opening them to greater degrees of exploitation by
U.S. banks and corporations.
NAFTA has meant more sweatshops and more poverty for the
people of Mexico. Many small farmers have been driven off their
land as a result of U.S. agribusiness flooding the market with
goods there. It has also meant layoffs for workers in the U.S.
and Canada, and more companies have moved factories to Mexico
to exploit cheaper labor.
The April 20-22 Summit of the Americas is the third meeting
to discuss the FTAA, which is scheduled to be finalized in
2005. This program will go beyond NAFTA, expanding on some of
its features, such as the right of corporations to sue
governments over laws that infringe upon their profits and
their ability to increase the privatization of health care,
education and other services.
In response, activists will converge in several
locations.
Quebec City
Major protests are planned in Quebec City April 20-21.
Groups organizing include Summit of the Americas Welcoming
Committee (CASA) in Quebec, and the Montreal-based groups
Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) and Operation SalAMI.
Workers World spoke to Josina Dunkel, a student at McGill
University in Montreal. She said students there expect the
demonstrations to be massive.
"There is a whole climate around these demonstrations,"
Dunkel said. "The momentum for them is huge."
She reported that the Canadian Federation of Students--the
more leftist of the two student unions there--was organizing 50
buses to Quebec. Students at Concordia University are allowed
to defer their final exams so they can participate in the
protests.
A protest is planned at McGill on March 7 to demand academic
amnesty so that students there can also defer their exams.
"The anti-globalization movement is strong in Canada,"
Dunkel told WW. "It actually predates the events in Seattle.
There was a huge demonstration in Vancouver [against an
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in 1998], which is on
the border with Seattle, before the November 1999 World Trade
Organization demonstration. It was attacked by cops and
followed up with nationwide student organizing.
"Campus groups started forming at the beginning of the year
to work on the anti-FTAA protests," she added.
Activists from Canada will protest as close to the meetings
as possible. Many from the U.S. will also head for Quebec,
though some are making the decision to concentrate their
efforts at the U.S.-Canada border.
From Buffalo, N.Y.,
to Tijuana, Mexico
Since a group of Buffalo college students flew to Seattle to
attend the anti-WTO protests, various progressive groups in the
area have formed the Buffalo Activist Network. Their next focus
is organizing regionally for a series of actions beginning
April 19 and culminating in a major action on April 22 at the
Peace Bridge on the U.S.-Canada border.
Groups from New York, Cleveland and many other cities plan
to participate. Organizers expect thousands to join in various
actions.
Activists from New England, meanwhile, will head towards
Vermont. There protesters will try to go to Quebec City as well
as have actions at the border.
Border actions are also planned for the U.S.-Mexico border.
A major demonstration is planned for the Tijuana, Mexico, and
San Diego border area. A legal demonstration is planned to
facilitate participation by immigrants and undocumented
workers.
Organizers are hoping for major mobilizations from the U.S.
West Coast and Mexico.
Labor on board
Many Canadian labor unions are gearing up for the protests.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees--a huge, militant union
of public-sector workers--is mobilizing.
From the U.S., AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Teamsters
President James P. Hoffa, and Steel Workers President George
Becker have all issued statements opposing the FTAA.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union passed a
resolution in December that "supports the efforts to organize
protests against the FTAA in Quebec next April and encourages
its members who can attend to do so."
The ILWU resolution states in part: "The globalizing
policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
have already extended the harm of the free market to some of
the farthest corners of the world. But instead of satisfying
international capital's greed, it has only whetted its appetite
for more."
NAFTA's result, the ILWU said, was the loss of 400,000 jobs
from the U.S. and a decline in living standards for Mexican
workers.
The United Electrical Workers passed a resolution supporting
anti-FTAA protests. "Their plan promises to benefit
multinational corporations, while destroying good jobs,
weakening unions, devastating national economies, sending
people into deeper poverty and destroying the environment,"
said the resolution.
It continued: "The trade ministers of the FTAA fear an
interruption in the negotiations could halt the entire
process.
"Tens of thousands of working people and their allies in the
student, farm, environmental and human-rights movements
succeeded [in disrupting the WTO in Seattle]. We do have the
power to stop the FTAA."
Post-Seattle repression
For U.S. activists, the Quebec City demonstration presents a
logistical challenge. Border police have wide discretion to
stop entry into Canada.
For example, a van carrying New York activists to an
organizing meeting in Quebec City was recently stopped at the
border. The van was searched and political materials were
seized and copied. No one made it to the meeting.
This is consistent with the post-Seattle policing strategy
that involves not only repression at demonstrations, but
attempts to stop them from happening.
Organizers for the Jan. 20 protests at George W. Bush's
inauguration in Washington and the August 2000 demonstrations
at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles fought and won
battles against local police, who attempted to keep
demonstrators miles from their targets.
In late January, protesters in Davos, Switzerland, prevailed
against incredible hurdles set up by authorities, including
turning away hundreds at the border, suspension of train
service, and liquid cow manure mixed with freezing water shot
at them through fire hoses.
Police preparations for Quebec City are no less rigorous,
according to reports. Plans call for an approximately
four-kilometer-long wall to be erected around downtown, in what
is already a walled city.
Subversive movement
An Associated Press article by Tom Cohen, entitled "Quebec
Fortress Prepares for Summit," reads:
"The towers and walls built to repel invaders of centuries
past no longer suffice for protecting 34 heads of state coming
for the Summit of the Americas in April.
"So another wall will be built, this one of metal fencing
around several square miles of old Quebec City, says [Normand]
Houle of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"Riot police will stand guard along the fence in an
old-fashioned show of force intended to prevent a burgeoning
protest movement from disrupting the three-day summit ... It
will be one of the largest security operations in Canadian
history...
"Houle insists security forces will be ready for anything,
even protesters trying to repeat the British tactic from 1759
of climbing the cliffs along the St. Lawrence to attack the
bastion of what was then called New France. 'If 2,000 people
try to scale the cliff, we'll be there,' he says."
Media reports like that are part of a conscious scare
campaign to keep activists and other concerned people away from
the protests.
It also shows that the capitalist state sees this not just
as a "burgeoning protest movement" but as a subversive
movement.
These demonstrations are not simply protests about one issue
or another. They are manifestations of a movement that is
against the system itself--one that identifies capitalism as
the root cause of society's ills and as the enemy.
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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