Essays

This article appeared in the premiere issue of UCSC's The Project, september 2003.

Note: I feel it is important to acknowledge that while the events I describe occurred under international scrutiny, with a relatively low level of police repression, the situation was tragically different at the may 28, 2004 trade summit in Guadalajara. Many young activists, some of whom were also in Cancun, were subject to arrest, severe penalties, torture and sexual abuse. Some have still not been released from detention. Public pressure must continue on media and Mexican consulates in order to ensure justice. See Bay Area Indymedia for updates.

The Real Cancun?

It wasn't quite spring break. And there is no real Cancun. Cancun is an artificial city just off the coast of Mexico.

Created 30 years ago for the sole purpose of providing a playground for gringo hedonism, the location was chosen by punching the criteria for the ideal resort into a computer. The mainland downtown area exists to support the glittering Zona Hotelera, a narrow arc of land lined with luxury hotels, theme restaurants, corporate chain stores, bars and clubs. On one side is a crocodile-filled lagoon; on the other the Caribbean, an improbable electric blue.

For the duration of the WTO ministerial Sept 9-13, the Zone is a labyrinth of barricades crawling with armored police and security forces. Roadblocks prevent access from the town. Battleships cruise offshore. Inside the heavily fortified convention center, the meeting lurches on. But the differences between the trade representatives from wealthy, powerful countries and the delegations from the global south are growing increasingly irreconcileable.

The Plan Puebla Panama-- an intensive infrastructural corridor in southern Mexico aimed at opening the way for corporate investment and resource extraction-- is a major issue. So is access to AIDS drugs in Africa and South Asia, where the disease has reached epic proportions. (Although the prohibitively expensive drugs patented by US pharmaceuticals are protected under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights clause (TRIPS), the 2001 Doha concession theoretically allows Indian and Brazilian companies to manufacture cheap generic equivalents for emergencies.) But the bane of this conference is agriculture. The self-sufficiency of the global south has been decimated by trade policies which enable genetically engineered surplus from the United States to be dumped there in exchange for monoculture cash crops, threatening genetic diversity as well as the cultural and economic survival of peasant communities.

Back on the mainland, 6000 campesinos from around the country, 200 Korean farmers, and about 1000 students, mainly from Mexico City have set up encampments and a model ecology village. In addition, thousands of foreign "globalfobicos" are lodged near the convergence center downtown. Will this coalition prove any more successful?

Wednesday, 9/10: The Campesino March. The farmers have consensed to take down the fence, with the support of a cross-cultural black bloc. Chac the Mayan rain god, represented in the marches by a 10-foot silver figure opposing privatization of the water supply, seems to be watching out for us this week. He always turns up at just the right moment, this time to ease the punishing heat as we grapple with the fence. It stops when we're done.

Less cooperative is a Maoist group which, our Mexican comrades warn, has a history of provoking the cops and then fleeing while everyone else takes a beating. (After hours of meetings in two languages, the only clear consensus that has emerged entre los anarquistas is "fuck los Maoistas." No translation needed.) So, someone starts throwing chunks of concrete ripped from the base of the fence at the cops, and the cops start throwing back. Brief moments of skirmishing will air repeatedly on TV, blamed on foreign agitators. Some receive cuts and bruises, no big deal. What we don't understand until later is that someone is dead. Lee Kyung-Hae, leader of the Korean farmers' organization, has climbed to the top of the fence wearing a sign saying "The WTO Kills Farmers," and plunged a knife into his own chest. He'd made a similar attempt in 1993, and performed a sit-in and hunger strike in front of the WTO's Geneva headquarters earlier this year. The fact is thousands of farmers in India, Korea, and even the US have killed themselves in the face of devastating global trade policies in the last few years.

The next night, after a cathartic downpour, a torchlit carnival march converges with the circling candles of the Korean ceremony going on at the point of his death. Kilometer Zero, the entry to the Zone, is now and forever Plaza Lee. His sacrifice has gained international attention and galvanized the resistance, united in honoring him through our struggle. Later there's an outdoor party where drummers beat hell out of metal trash cans trundled in grocery carts, and the people dance like Matrixites in Zion.

Thursday, 9/11: Forum on Corporate Globalization, Militarism and Empire. In her presentation on the economic logic of empire, UNAM Professor Ana Elena Cecena maps the location of US military bases around the world, corresponding neatly to oil reserves, mineral resources and other commercial interests. Steven Staples from the Polaris Institute quotes the Foundation for the New American Century's strategic vision to the effect that those regions of the globe which resist connectivity into the web of capital and commerce might become "of interest" to the US Department of Defense.

Friday, 9/12: Eighty protesters infiltrate the Zone dressed as tourists and blockade the road outside the Convention Center. Traffic halts for hours. Although threatened with mass arrest, we negotiate not just unconditional release but recognition of our message in front of major press. We ride back to Kilometer Zero in triumph, cheering and chanting on the roofs of 2 charter busses they've sent for us. We're met by the Korean and Mexican campesinos for more music and dancing. The rain starts as soon as we descend.

Saturday, 9/13: The last major march. The fence has been rebuilt. This time the women attack it with wire-cutters and crowbars while the men hold a protective line. Cops poke their sticks through the bars at us wherever we breach the inner layer. Once again Chac's timing is impeccable, cooling our labor and stopping when we're through. When the fence is weakened enough, ropes are attached to the central gates, which are hauled aside into twisted metal. A WTO figure is burned in effigy, followed by an American flag. The international crowd erupts in spontaneous cheers. Funny, I'm sure there weren't this many people at the forum on globalization and empire. It seems most people instinctively grasp the point.

Sunday,Sept 14: All pretense at consensus between rich and poor nations collapses unequivocally. At an "unofficial" (and hence unaccountable) final session, US trade representative Robert Zoellick and his EU counterpart meet with a few ministers representing huge blocs of the not yet overdeveloped world. The US and EU issue an ultimatum that they will not consider the global south's concerns on agriculture unless the global south accepts their new investment program. The global south counters that they will not consider the US/EU investment program unless the latter respond to their concerns on agriculture.

The Kenyan minister, representing not only his own country but all of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific archipelago, walks out. The G-21 coalition of the major developing nations declare their official support for the walk-out. Zoellick blames the third world for its failure to negotiate. If they won't cooperate, he warns, we will simply cease to deal with them. The Kenyan minister states that he and his fellow delegates would not have been able to take their stand without the unrelenting resistance in the streets. In the streets, we are euphoric. But we've won a battle, not a war.

What now? Worldwide, compliance with the corporate-capitalist global program is an insupportable illusion. Moreover, most of the world takes for granted the identification of this program with U.S. imperial interests. Don't believe me? Ask anyone outside our borders. And if the WTO fails, the empire will find other ways.

Many world-trade-watchers predict a return to bilateral or regional trade agreements. Next up: the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), expanding on 1994's disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The FTAA will deploy the same neoliberal tenets institutionalized by the WTO, including the for-profit privatization of vital services; patents on living organisms; and the elimination of labor and environmental standards, consumer safety and public health regulations as illegal "restrictions on trade." I predict another trend. The neoliberal, finance-based approach of the 1990s has metamorphosed into the neoconservative, techno-military approach of the 2000s. It's only once cooperation is withdrawn that coercion become necessary. If we can't do it the easy way, we'll do it the hard way. Either way you look at it it's empire. Either way, itŐs ugly. If the "globalfobicos" can claim to share any responsibility in thwarting economic channels of domination, then it will be even more important for us to resist militarism in coming days.

ps (since you asked)

WHAT IS REVOLUTION?

Revolution is a comprehensive transformation; a paradigm shift re-orienting society and the individual toward different goals, values, principles and priorities. It can only come from a true change in consciousness, which MUST be translated into concrete action. Revolution means eliminating the distance between our ideals and our realities.

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