December 2, 1999
The Seattle International People's Assembly vehemently condemns the use of state, police and military violence unleashed on peaceful protesters and residents of Seattle who are in opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO), on media people, and even on innocent bystanders during the past few days!
The international monopoly bourgeoisie, and its representatives led by U.S. President Bill Clinton, would like the world to believe that they are open to listening to the widespread people's protests, but nothing is further from the truth! The use of repressive violence and imposition of martial law in downtown Seattle truly exposes the fascist lengths they will go to in ensuring that the WTO forges ahead in furthering imperialist globalization with greater harm to the working class and the world's peoples.
Even before the violence, the suppression of democratic rights was evident when the Mayor of Seattle explicitly denied the People's Assembly its right to hold its march and rally in downtown Seattle. But this did not stop international delegations and several hundred activists of color from marching our planned route and joining over 50,000 protesters coming from many cities throughout the U.S. and worldwide to condemn the WTO!
The WTO is implementing policies and trade laws of imperialist globalization which are devastating for the world's peoples and sentences them to increased poverty and more intensified exploitation. The significance of the WTO's 1999 Seattle Ministerial Meeting is its agenda to open up a so-called new Millennium round of "trade talks" to further expand laws not covered in its previous GATT '94 agreements and to expand its Agreement on Agriculture.
It comes as no surprise that Seattle police and U.S. national guard storm troopers have been violently dispersing and arresting several hundreds of the protesters in an indiscriminate fashion in the last two days. This is the true modus operandi of those that do imperialism's bidding! We have also witnessed this sort of state police and military repression during anti-APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) protests in Manila (1996), Vancouver (1997), Kuala Lumpur (1998) and New Zealand (September 1999). It confirms what has been happening all along, that on a wider scale, with "globalization" comes U.S. aggression. The longstanding U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the U.S. genocide in Iraq immediately come to mind.