The Battle of Quebec: Free trade and plastic bullets
Globalised resistance
Members of the Quebec-Ireland Committee were at Quebec
City last weekend for the anti-globalisation demonstrations
(getting tear-gassed in the process) and present this eye-witness
account:
Plastic bullets, clouds of tear gas, water cannon, snatch squads,
and hundreds of militant youth trying to bring down a ``wall of
shame'' - Belfast in the good old/bad old days? No, this was
historic Quebec City last weekend as the leaders of all the
countries in the Americas (except Cuba - excluded to placate the
US) and several corporate leaders met to discuss a free trade
area for the Americas.
The framework and terms of the negotiations were kept shrouded in
secrecy, so that even elected members of governments were not
privy to the contents. Symbolic of the exclusive nature of the
Summit of the Americas, a huge wire fence, costing 12 million
dollars, was constructed around the conference area and 6,000
police were mobilised to protect it. The free trade agreements
already in place between Canada, the US and Mexico have brought
job losses, environmental degradation, a decline in social
services and, of course, greater wealth and power for the rich.
The gap between rich and poor in these countries has increased
greatly since the North American Free Trade deal went into effect
over a decade ago. An especially sinster aspect of these
agreements is they give the right for corporations to sue
governments if a government policy, such as environmental
regulation, interferes with the company's profits. Critics
suspected that the proposed Free trade Agreement for the Americas
would be more of the same.
Reaction to the proposed Free Trade Agreement for the Americas
brought an unprecedented mobilisation of civil society, with a
counter ``Popular Summit'' attended by over 2,000 delegates from
all over the Americas, including representatives from Cuba. A
march organised by unions, as well as environmental, human rights
and women's groups attracted 45,000 people united in saying no to
a free trade agreement with a corporate agenda.
Meanwhile, over two days, thousands of militants demonstrated in
front of the fence barrier calling it ```the wall of shame''. To
the great embarrassment of the police, young people succeeded in
toppling a good section of the perimeter fence with relative
ease. Police responded with tear gas, water cannons, plastic
bullets and snatch squads, often targeting group leaders rather
than stone throwers. On a number of occasions, witnesses saw
police shoot tear gas canisters directly at paramedic teams
treating injured demonstrators. The most flagrant incident was
the kidnapping of anti-globalisation leader Jaggi Singh, a
Canadian, who was away from the confrontation area when three
plainclothes police jumped him, dragged him into an unmarked car,
and drove away. Singh, no stranger to police harassment, has been
charged with possession of a weapon: a large catapult that some
protestors were using to lob teddy bears and confetti over the
fence in the vicinity of his arrest. Pictures taken at the scene
of the arrest show that Singh was not involved in any illegal
activity.
Protestors were undeterred by the repression and succeeded in
breaching the barrier on two more occasions. Large sections of
old Quebec were flooded with tear gas and several protestors were
hit by plastic bullets, with at least one reporting a broken
wrist. This is the first time that Quebec police have used
plastic bullets as a crowd control technique.
Despite this massive repression and the arrogant attitude of
several political leaders (Vincente Fox of Mexico said the
demonstrators were rich kids with full stomachs - blithely
ignoring that the recent march of Zapatistas to Mexico City
voiced the same demands as demonstrators in Quebec), most
commentators admit that the counter summit and the protestors
largely succeeded in forcing the government leaders to respond to
their agenda and address such issues as transparency, human and
environmental rights, and democracy. Indeed, the summit has
produced a ``democracy clause'' and has vowed large sums of money
to tackle poverty. For those present at the demonstrations,
however, the most important thing to come out of the process was
the sense of solidarity and the links that were built over the
week of struggle. As Warren Allmand, president of the
International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development
put it to the 45,000 marchers, ``Resistance has been globalised!''
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