File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0004, message 504


Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 01:24:55 -0400
Subject: RACB makes Wall Street Journal
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-dojo.tao.ca>


Subject: WSJ on A16 (cont.)
Date:  Fri, 14 Apr 2000 13:10:00 -0400
From:    Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
 Reply-To: 
         lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com
      To: 
         lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com

Wall Street Journal - April 14, 2000

MF Protesters Prize
Intensity Over Numbers

BY HELENE COOPER and MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- As this city hunkers down to host the weekend's Evils 
of Globalization protest party, one thing is already clear: The 
activists here won't have the numbers they had last year when close 
to 30,000 labor-union members joined 10,000 other activists outside 
the meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle.

Indeed, labor's big protest day was Wednesday, when 14,000 union 
members rallied in front of the Capitol against globalization and, 
more specifically, the pending China-trade bill. Now, those activists 
have largely left town, leaving the rest of the anti-globalization 
crowd -- namely environmentalists and other activists -- to pretty 
much fend for themselves.

But that might not matter, because the protesters planning to disrupt 
International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings aren't relying on 
mere numbers to make their point. "You won't see the concentrated 
sheer mass of people you saw on Nov. 30 in Seattle," says Michael 
Dolan, field organizer of Public Citizen and a primary planner of the 
Seattle protests. "But there's going to be a lot of people -- 
students, militants, anarchists -- doing lots of things," he says.

Those things will include chaining themselves to each other and 
surrounding city intersections, the better to prevent delegates from 
attending meetings. They will include marching down various city 
streets -- with or without permits -- to further disrupt traffic. And 
they may include violence from a fringe element of anarchists 
trickling into the city this week.

Indeed, an e-mail signed by a number of anarchist groups -- titled 
A16 Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Bloc statement -- states that "we 
do not necessarily advocate violence or encourage the destruction of 
property," but adds that protesters should "recognize the very real 
possibility for confrontation and be open to a diversity of tactics 
as a means of legitimate defense."

E-mail signers include the Monogahela Anarchist Group (Morgantown, 
W.Va.), We Dare Be Free (Boston) and Movement Against the Monarchy 
(London).

Most of the protesters say they intend to remain peaceful, and 
criticize the violent fringe element that trashed stores in Seattle 
last year. But even many of the peaceful activists acknowledge that 
getting arrested is part of their aim.

"There are going to be arrests," one activist said. "The only 
question is whether there will be tear-gas foreplay."

In many ways, the local police may end up deciding whether the 
Washington protests turn into another Seattle. Police here, by all 
accounts, are far more used to dealing with street protests than were 
their Seattle counterparts, who failed to secure the WTO meetings 
from protesters and then resorted to tear gas and rubber bullets to 
ease delegates' entries into the meetings.

In Washington, police have already blocked the entrances to the IMF 
and World Bank, and have been patrolling outside government buildings 
and other likely targets in shows of force. "They've mobilized more 
police than I've ever seen in my life to defend these institutions 
from the American people," said activist John Sellers of the Ruckus 
Society, an activist group based in Berkeley, Calif.

If police do resort to tear gas, they will be playing into the hands 
of the protesters, since the American public will once again be 
treated to television footage of armed troops gassing unarmed 
protestors.

Activists say they will consider it a victory if they manage to shut 
down the IMF/World Bank meetings. They wouldn't mind shutting down 
the federal government for a day or so either.

   

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