7 December 1999

"They are worried about a few windows being smashed. They should come and see the violence being done to our communities in the name of liberalisation of trade."

Anonymous Filipino leader in Seattle, quoted by The Guardian.

Only a few weeks ago, Mr. Clinton was an optimistic man. He hoped that world leaders would flock to his summit in Seattle and pay court to him there, and that a new round of global trade negotiations would begin, one that would forever be associated with his name, and one that would in large part constitute the much sought-after "legacy" over which he is known to obsess. Even before the Third Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation had opened, it was clear that he was not going to get his way. The failure of the trade bureaucrats to agree upon an agenda for the week's negotiations sent a signal that all might not go swimmingly and made many leaders of foreign governments reluctant to fly to Seattle for the photocalls. A week before the summit began, only Mr. Castro remained interested in attending. And ultimately, even Fidel stayed at home.

Despite the signs that all might not be well, the international press presented Mike Moore, the head of the WTO, as another bullish optimist. During the week of the summit we were told that whenever grim news was brought to his attention about the depth of the hole into which the summit was sinking, he would show his essentially bouncy nature by responding with the catchphrase: "And it's getting worse". Pleasingly, of course, it never stopped getting worse. We all know that last week's summit ended up a thing of shreds and patches, but it is worth dwelling upon, and savouring, some of the details as we reflect on the enormity of what has just taken place.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of protestors -- many of them dressed as Sea-Turtles -- succeeded in shutting down the centre of Seattle and forcing the "indefinite postponement" of the summit's official opening ceremonies. It was no secret that November 30 would be the largest day of protest, nor that the opening event at the Paramount Theatre was going to be the main target, nor that a large number of protestors were committed to the strategies of non-violent confrontational action that have become increasingly popular in recent years. The Seattle police had received much helpful advice from other US security forces, as well as the German Police Force, and they had been training for months. Indeed, the non-violent activists from the Direct Action Network went to visit the chief of police to let him know exactly what they planned to do. On the day itself Seattle's boys in blue proved quite willing to use pepper spray and rubber bullets in order to discipline and to punish the large crowds. And they were wholly unable to prevail. The police admitted that they could not guarantee a safe passage for the delegates from their hotels to the venue; only a small fraction made it on time, and the ceremonies themselves were cancelled. As violent clashes between protestors and police continued into the afternoon, the authorities confronted the full extent of their failures and responded with a get-much-tougher stance: they declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew and called up the National Guard to police the conference still further.

On Wednesday, as the authorities were arresting hundreds of demonstrators for extremely minor misdemeanours, President Clinton addressed the trade ministers, after making them wait for an hour, during which they were not allowed to leave their seats. He scolded the WTO for its secret practices, and spoke of his support for the peaceful protestors, and for international labour rights. None of this was sincere, of course, yet it was the perfect sign that the protestors had won the battle of public opinion, for Clinton's nose for following where the polls lead has been extremely well honed over years of practice. On Thursday the talks were clearly in trouble, and on Friday the summit adjourned without a final agreement.

There was much talk of splits between the EU and the US which proved impossible to patch over. In the end, though, it was the poorer countries' refusal to sign on the dotted line which doomed the talks to failure. Delegates from the South were far less keen on launching the new round of trade talks when their countries were still struggling to implement the previous round, and in Seattle they found themselves repeatedly sidelined. US chief trade negotiator Charlene Barshefksy was found to be personally and politically offensive, and her patronising speech elicited booing. The African delegates were especially ill-treated: a translator provided for the African caucus meeting was sent away at the last minute to work at a US-convened meeting instead; at another meeting the microphones mysteriously failed and could not be repaired, apparently, for over an hour; notoriously, one African trade minister was physically excluded from the negotiations of a theoretically-open agriculture committee.

Were the Southern delegates emboldened to refuse the Northern governments by the scale of the protests outside? How did the upheavals outside the talks affect what went on inside? We may never know in any great detail, though a significant impact certainly shouldn't be ruled out. Sometimes negotiations can run on until consensus is finally reached, but this time around the Seattle police told the delegates they weren't going to be able to provide so much protection after the summit's official end. It's hard to believe that trade negotiators were wholly uninfluenced by the popular and media pressures they encountered. Many NGO activists were able to operate on both sides of police lines and to ferry information, enthusiasm and political opinion back and forth to the governmental negotiators. And we should always remember that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment failed a few years ago when the widespread global opposition to the deal showed the French that they were not entirely isolated in worrying about likely consequences, prompting the veto that killed the negotiations.

There were many other sources of satisfaction in a busy week. Despite the extremely irresponsible use of potentially-lethal rubber bullets by the police, we are delighted that nobody was killed. That probably hasn't been emphasised enough. It was entertaining to see how some representatives of the media seemed surprised to find out how well-informed many demonstrators seemed to be about the politics of global trade, and how they seemed to defy the stereotype of ignorant band-waggoners that, yes, the media had constructed for them to inhabit. They might have been less surprised had they covered the large teach-ins and the many other educational events that went on in the protestors' community before and during the "official" summit. As of the time of writing, almost all the protestors who were arrested have been released, the solidarity tactics of refusing to co-operate with the police and insisting on a jury trial proving to be extremely effective.

Above all, thousands and thousands of militants met and marched. They inspired one another and together they were inspirational. They came in large numbers from British Columbia and from the San Francisco Bay Area; some of them were Seattle locals, while others came from much, much further afield, from many countries all around the world. In Seattle they exchanged their pamphlets and their email addresses, they forged some pretty unlikely alliances -- "Teamsters love Turtles, Turtles love Teamsters" was a favourite back-and-forth chant --, they plotted and schemed, and they demonstrated to the world and to each other that nobody is alone who struggles against the brutal imposition of the free market, the neo-colonialism of late capitalism and the global injustices that it systematically spawns. This has been a colossal exercise in international political consciousness raising, and as the participants themselves return home to their friends and partners in their more local struggles, millions more will be touched by the beneficent legacies of Seattle.

On the way into town, visitors saw that the statue of Lenin incongruously parked outside the city was holding a banner that read, "End Corporate Rule -- WTO -- Who's Taking Over?" It was a good question. By the end of the week it was quite clear what the answer had become. In the words of a Friday night chant: "WTO: we said no! The people came and stole the show!"

The Turtle Salutes The Protestors against the WTO's Third Ministerial Meeting in Seattle!