BY NICK EVERETT
SYDNEY For
the last two months, a coalition initiated by the Australian Fair Trade
and Investment Network has been meeting to organise a Stop the WTO agenda
rally for noon on November 14 in Hyde Park. Another coalition, the No WTO
network, has been coordinating protests, including civil disobedience actions,
to take place between November 13 and 15.
The actions will coincide with a Sydney meeting of 25 trade ministers hosted by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The mini-ministerial will be dominated by trade ministers from wealthy countries, which are seeking to accelerate the pace of free trade, privatisation and cuts to public services.
NSW police minister Mick Costa has initiated a media campaign to discredit the planned protests. On September 25, Costa stated that he was deeply concerned about web sites providing information designed to aid the violent disruption of the forthcoming WTO meeting in Sydney... These sites are designed to incite violence... They are telling protesters to arm themselves with baseball bats, slingshots, firecrackers, gas masks and marbles. Costa urged the federal government to have the sites closed down.
Following Costa's outburst, and a media frenzy about protester violence, the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade cancelled the Stamford Plaza Hotel in Double Bay as the meeting's venue. Trade minister Mark Vaile has remained tight-lipped about the meeting's new venue.
On October 23, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union executive officer Rick Fowler met with representatives of the No WTO network's direct action collective to discuss police liaison on November 14. Fowler expressed fears that a provocation on the day could endanger the CFMEU in the face of the federal government's attacks on the union.
On October 25, at an organising meeting for the November 14 Stop the WTO agenda rally, Fowler and three officials of the NSW Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) argued that the march should not take place. They said that No WTO had been unable to give sufficient commitment to effective liaison with police on the day and that they feared confrontations might take place with police.
Jan Primrose, representing the NSW AMWU, argued that the rally risked a confrontation with police similar to the police attack on peaceful picketers outside the NSW parliament last year in response to the NSW government's anti-workers' compensation laws. Fowler also referred to the 20,000-strong union protest against the federal government's anti-worker laws in 1996, which broke down the doors of Parliament House in Canberra.
Fowler stated that while the movement internationally had achieved significant victories, such as the mass protest against the WTO in Seattle in 1999, it had also suffered significant setbacks, particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Genoa was a setback for the movement, he declared. (In July 2001, more than 300,000 people rallied outside a Genoa meeting of leaders of the rich G8 countries.)
Representatives of No WTO, the National Union of Students, the No War on Iraq coalition, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) and the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens all argued that the cancellation of the march would be a backward step. It would mean that the protest organisers had accepted the capitalist media's and the corporate elite's characterisation of the movement as violent.
Iggy Kim, representing ASAP, explained, There is no recent precedent of a lunchtime protest march in Sydney ending up with a confrontation with police. The right to march peacefully on city streets against pro-war policies and the exploitation of the poor countries by the rich is a right that has been won through years of struggle by working people. Our resolve must not buckle in the face of a campaign of fear whipped up by the media and exploiting the tragedy of terror attacks such as the recent Bali bombing.
In response, the union officials who were opposed to a street march said they would need to advise their unions of the meeting's sentiments. The issue will be discussed again on November 1.
The No War on Iraq coalition and the Sydney Network for Peace are building an anti-war contingent for the Stop the WTO agenda rally. The rally will be preceded by a student walkout, which will assemble at 11am in Town Hall Square.
From Green Left Weekly, October 30, 2002.
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