Ministerial Conference of Economics and Trade Ministers of the WTO in Seattle 1999

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Podium and lectern

The ministerial conference of the economics and trade ministers of the WTO in Seattle 1999 was supposed to take place from November 30th to December 2nd, 1999, but could not take place as planned due to disputes between critics of globalization and the police. The meeting thus had no status for the World Trade Organization , but is interpreted as the beginning of a new wave of the anti- globalization movement in the USA, in which the term anti-globalization appears for the first time .

Ministerial Conference

A meeting of ministers from the World Trade Organization, founded in 1995, was to be held in Seattle, the most influential organization for negotiating global trade agreements. The 3rd WTO Ministerial Conference was to take place in the USA for the first time. A new round of trade agreements, known as the Seattle Round , was planned. Economics and trade ministers from 133 countries with a total of 5,000 delegation members were announced. As a result of the protests, the conference could not take place as planned at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle. Because of the disruptions in the Seattle Round, the negotiations were only resumed in Doha , Qatar, which is more easily controlled by the police, and accordingly referred to as the Doha Round .

Advance of the protests

Pepper spray use in Seattle during the protests

The Peoples Global Action (PGA) first called for resistance to the meeting in Seattle, and in the run-up to the congress the media portal Indymedia was founded as an “Independent Media Center”. Many international organizations, especially trade unions, supported the call and in particular the Direct Action Network (DAN), an association of different, mainly anarchist groups, prepared the protests on the ground.

There were also appearances by persons and groups of the political right like the former Republican Pat Buchanan , who interpreted globalization in the sense of the conspiracy theory of the "New World Order" .

Protest activities during the three days of the conference

Police in Seattle during the protests

On the morning of November 30th, the city center was blocked by several thousand people and the police tried to evacuate it by force because some conference participants could not reach the meeting and it had to be postponed. At lunchtime, a black block was formed that sprayed corporate branches with paint and threw in their shop windows, which other people used to loot. As a result, there was violence on the part of "non-violent" protesters against members of the black bloc. In the late afternoon the police had cleared the city center and it was occupied by the National Guard , several hundred demonstrators had been arrested. The mayor of the city, Paul Schell , declared a state of emergency and since entry into the city center had been banned, the clashes moved to the outskirts of Seattle.

On December 1st and 2nd, the protesters ignored the ban on gathering in the city center, and there and in the outskirts there were many clashes, arrests, further blockades and violent attacks by the police.

Conservative estimates put at least 40,000 protesters at just one demonstration, others put the figure at 75,000 activists.

Classification and consequences of the protests

In direct comparison with the recurring riots in Berlin on May 1st and the militant protests in Latin America in the 1990s, the Battle of Seattle can be viewed as insignificant. Richard Day summed it up with the words “ the only thing special about what happened in Seattle was where it happened ”. The Nation spoke of a "little broken glass" . Significant was the fact that the clashes did not take place anywhere, but in the middle of the United States.

The cost of the Seattle city budget increased from a planned $ 6 million to $ 9 million, mainly for cleanup work and overtime wages for the police. The economy lost about $ 20 million to vandalism and lost sales.

The media attention for the black bloc of around 200 people, which was mostly identified with anarcho-primitivist groups around John Zerzan in the nearby city of Eugene , led to considerable disputes within the anarchist press landscape, but brought anarchism as a whole considerable mass media attention and influx of personnel.

On June 16, 2004, 157 people arrested outside the no-gathering zone were awarded indemnities totaling $ 250,000. The anarchist Robert Thaxton aka Rob Los Ricos was sentenced to seven years in prison for throwing a stone at a police officer and was only released on June 29, 2006 after the entire sentence had been served. On June 30, 2007, federal court ruled that the city of Seattle had violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution by arresting demonstrators with no prior crime or knowledge .

Media reception

CNN reported the protests live around the clock. The Time Magazine and Newsweek raised their protests on the title page, with Newsweek cover photo of a detained by the police on the ground demonstrators entitled The Battle of Seattle knew that was later picked up by other media and taken to refer to the protest activities. The interpretation of the events as the birth of the movement critical of globalization made the rounds, in fact only a second wave of the movement critical of globalization in the USA can be spoken of. The New York Times published a hoax that three Molotov cocktails were thrown. Despite being corrected two days later, the hoax continued to be broadcast in the mass media. An article in The Nation magazine stated that Molotov cocktails had never been thrown during anti-globalization protests in the USA.

In 2007 the film drama " Battle in Seattle " was shot, which thematizes the events.

Web links

Commons : Protests against the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul van Seters , Paul James : Global Social Movements and Global Civil Society: A Critical Overview In: Globalization and Politics, Vol. 2: Global Social Movements and Global Civil Society (2014), p. Viii
  2. ↑ http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml
  3. ^ Alasdair Spark: New World Order . In: Peter Knight (Ed.): Conspiracy Theories in American History. To Encyclopedia . ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver and London 2003, Vol. 2, p. 539.
  4. ↑ Seattle Police Department: The Seattle Police Department After Action Report: World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference Seattle, Washington November 29 - December 3, 1999. p. 41. " Police estimated the size of this march [the labor march] in excess of 40,000 "
  5. ↑ Richard Day: Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the New Social Movements London / Ann Arbor, MI and Toronto: Pluto Press and between the Lines 2005, p. 3 quoted. n. Gabriel Kuhn: ›New Anarchism‹ in the USA Seattle and the consequences. Unrast Verlag, Münster 2008 ISBN 978-3-89771-474-8 , p. 30
  6. ^ WTO protests hit Seattle in the pocketbook , CBC News , January 6, 2000
  7. ^ My Way , no longer available on June 27, 2008
  8. ↑ Colin McDonald: Jury says Seattle violated WTO protesters' rights , Seattle Post Intelligencer. January 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-27. 
  9. ↑ Police Brace For Protests In Windsor And Detroit http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A07EFD81E3CF937A35755C0A9669C8B63&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
  10. ↑ The Myth of Protest Violence , David Graeber . The Nation, August 26, 2004