[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [FNB-L] WTO News: Geneva Molitovs + US Marines + A Report

Sun Nov 11 16:16:39 CST 2001

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>From: Tom_Childs at douglas.bc.ca
>Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 13:39:35 -0800
>Subject: Fwd: [FNB-L] WTO News:  Geneva Molitovs + US Marines + A Report
>To: mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca
>Sender: owner-mai-list at moon.bcpl.gov.bc.ca
>Status:  
>
>   ----- Forwarded message: -----
>>From mail Sun Nov 11 07:55 PST 2001
>To: Stop the WTO <stoptheWTO at topica.com>
>From: Graeme Bacque <gbacque at netzero.net>
>Subject: Fwd: [FNB-L] WTO News:  Geneva Molitovs + US Marines + A Report
>
>------------Original message------------
>Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 07:14:52 -0800 (PST)
>Subject: [FNB-L] WTO News:  Geneva Molitovs + US Marines + A Report
>Reply-To: fnb-l at lists.tao.ca
>
>
>More Coverage of WTO Protests Can be Found at:
>http://www.indymedia.org/
>http://www.infoshop.org/inews/pages.php?page=3DN9+-+Anti-WTO+2001
>
>Articles:
>1) Protesters Hurl Molotov Cocktails At Barricaded WTO
>2) U.S. Warship, Marines Off Qatar for WTO Meeting
>3) The Daily Doha Report by Anuradha Mittal (Food First)
>
>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
>Ananova.
>10 November 2001.
>
>Protesters Hurl Molotov Cocktails At Barricaded WTO
>
>GENEVA -- Anti-globalisation protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at
>riot police in Geneva.
>
>Police were keeping them away from the lakeside headquarters of the
>World Trade Organisation.
>
>Earlier, an estimated 5,000 people took to the streets to demonstrate
>against the WTO, protesting that globalisation put profits before
>people.
>
>"God is dead. The WTO replaced it," read one banner.
>
>The protests are part of a series of worldwide demonstrations against
>the WTO, which is currently holding its ministerial meeting in Doha,
>Qatar, on whether to launch a new round of trade liberalizing
>organisations.
>
>Grassroots organisations, which gathered for the WTO ministerial
>meeting in Seattle in December 1999, say that rigid visa restrictions
>have prevented them from travelling to the Gulf state.
>
>"Governments have taken refuge in Doha because they are afraid of the
>people who elected them," said Swiss peasant leader Fernand Cuche.
>
>Police in full riot gear were out in force, effectively sealing off
>Geneva's banking quarter. Many stores along the procession route closed
>briefly in fear of trouble. Extra security guards were posted by
>McDonalds outlets -- usually a popular target of anti-globalisation
>protesters.
>
>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
>Reuters.
>8 November 2001.
>
>U.S. Warship, Marines Off Qatar for WTO Meeting
>
>DOHA -- The U.S. Navy helicopter ship Peleliu and two other vessels
>with 2,100 Marines have moved into the Gulf off Qatar to offer security
>for a World Trade Organization meeting there that opens Friday.
>
>"It is a precautionary move," said a U.S. official who refused to give
>details. The Peleliu, whose jump jets have flown sorties in the current
>campaign in Afghanistan, is the type of ship that has previously been
>used to evacuate by helicopter Americans and others from hostile
>situations.
>
>Some officials in the United States have expressed concern about the
>WTO meeting in a region made tense by the U.S. air strikes against the
>ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.
>
>Qatari authorities are taking no chances, their nerves already frayed
>by a first security scare Wednesday when guards shot dead a Qatari who
>had opened fire near a base used by U.S. warplanes south of the capital
>Doha.
>
>Anti-globalization protests, which have been the top security concern
>at such meetings since violence in Seattle two years ago -- which
>became a clarion call to the anti- globalization movement -- were
>likely to be muted at the Qatar talks.
>
>Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the environmental group Greenpeace,
>docked Thursday within view of the key trade ministers' meeting to lead
>demonstrations.
>
>Authorities imposed a tight security cordon around the seafront luxury
>hotel as trade ministers and delegates from 142 countries gathered in
>the oil-rich Gulf state.
>
>Boats patrolled the waters off Doha, soldiers in full battle gear
>manned key intersections, and plainclothes security officers closed all
>roads leading to the conference center on the outskirts of the city.
>
>Greenpeace officials accused Qatar of reneging on its promise to allow
>access by the public and activists from other non-government
>organizations (NGOs) to Rainbow Warrior, which set sail from
>Philadelphia in the United States four days after the September 11
>attacks by suspected  Muslim militants.
>
>Greenpeace political director Remi Parmentier said by telephone: "NGOs,
>the press and the public are having difficulty in accessing the Rainbow
>Warrior."
>
>Qatar's efforts to ensure security have involved restricting visas to
>groups and individuals accredited by the WTO and limiting the number of
>NGO participants to below 600.
>
>But Parmentier complained that more than half of the accredited NGOs
>were business lobbies, and that many groups critical of the WTO had
>received only one visa each.
>
>"That is why we brought Rainbow Warrior -- to ensure that the voices of
>those directly affected by the WTO, and who are often ignored, are
>heard."
>
>Demonstrations are rare in Qatar, an affluent state which sits on the
>world's third largest natural gas reserves.
>
>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>
>The Daily Doha Report
>by Anuradha Mittal
>Fri Nov 9 '01
>398 60th Street Oakland, CA 94618 phone: (510)654-4400
>michaelm at foodfirst.org
>
>Anuradha Mittal , Co-Director of Food First, is in Doha attending the
>WTO Conference and representing the voices of people from developing
>nations. This is the first of her daily Doha reports,
>
>
>I arrived in Doha yesterday at 10 pm and was taken directly to the Ritz
>Carlton hotel. The skeleton U.S. delegation had reduced from over 200
>in number to some 45-50 delegates, as the delgates took the option of
>not attending given the security concerns. The Congressional delegation
>and even the Secretary of Commerce and Agriculture had opted out. This
>resulted in the USTR inviting US NGOs and the press to stay at the
>fancy Ritz Carlton to fill the rooms.
>
>This morning was the security briefing for the US delegates. Once they
>realized that I am an Indian national, I was unceremoniusly escorted
>out of the room. The USTR representative that had called the Food First
>office to invite me to stay at the Ritz exclaimed, "I had no idea that
>you are not a US citizen." The others were given a security briefing
>including an emeregency cell phone in case they had to be evacuated.
>
>The security is heavy with Qatari security officials heavily armed in
>blue camoflauge.The NGO center looks empty--very different from
>Seattle, where voices of the working poor, family farmers, unions,
>faith-based groups, women activists and other civil society
>representatives from around the world had sent a loud and clear message
>to the WTO--Your unaccountable and unparticipatory practices that have
>unleashed economic warfare on the poor are unacceptable.
>
>Few of us who are here, met yesterday and this morning, to challenge
>this unparticipatory process and to strategize against muscle flexing
>by the US and the Washington Consensus in action in Doha. About 50 of
>us gathered outside the entrance of the hall at 4:30 pm where the
>inaugural session was to be held this evening. While the delegates
>walked in and press gathered around us, we all held the sign of "NO
>VOICE IN THE WTO," and had masking tape covering our mouths. The
>delegates had found the most interesting moment of the conference as
>they flashed their cameras at us. Jose Bove, the French farmer, then
>decided to carry our message inside, but was immediately stopped by the
>security who wrestled with him.
>
>Almost spontaneously, I started the chant, "What do we want?", and our
>demand "DEMOCRACY!" boomed across the hallways of the Sheraton Hotel,
>where the WTO is meeting in secrecy in the state of Qatar, known to be
>unknown, so the economic forces can push through policies which hurt
>millions across the world.
>
>Soon I was surrounded by cameras and media and the secretive,
>undemocratic policies of the WTO were being carried across the airwaves
>around the world.
>
>At the inaugural session, Mike Moore, the Director General of the WTO
>proclaimed, "The transparency and inclusiveness, which is to say the
>legitimacy, of the Geneva process has been universally acknowledged."
>
>He credited Chairman Stuart Harbinson and ambassadors and delegates in
>Geneva, who he said have worked in an open process, marked by honor,
>integrity and good humor.
>
>This contrasted sharply with what the delegate from Ghana based in
>Geneva, Lawrence Yaw Sae-Brawusi said to me. As we talked during our
>flight from Bahrain to Doha, he explained to me that since Seattle
>there had been a change in process. "It was more accountable, open and
>democratic. But the way the final draft was presented by Harbinson, it
>completed violated the spirit of the whole process. All the praise that
>has been showered on him is now wasted. The process needs guidelines of
>engagement by the Third World countries and cannot depend on the
>benevolence of chairpersons like Harbinson."
>
>Message from Kofi Annan to the inaugural session claimed that since
>Sept. 11, the world has two choices: First, a mutually destructive
>clash of civilizations or second, a world united through a global
>economy. As the economic heads meet to discuss international economy,
>they do so without discussing international politics. They are like
>ostriches with their heads in the sand who are not acknowledging the
>ongoing war in Afghanistan. They do so without acknowledging the Third
>Choice--not Tony Blair's Third Way, but a choice based on viable
>alternatives that the international civil society has offered that make
>the possibility of a better world a reality.
>
>  From Doha, Anuradha
>http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/global/trade/wto
>
>
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>.                            the
>.                     [|=3D-=3Dprisoner=3D-=3D|]
>.     Free Radio Austin 97.1 http://pirateradio.org/fra
>. Austin Independent Media Center: http://austin.indymedia.org
>.
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Find a job, post your resume.
>http://careers.yahoo.com
>
>    vegetarian, nonviolence, consensus
>-Food Not Bombs List     fnb-l at lists.tao.ca
>-distributing food in opposition to violence
>-archive: http://archive.foodnotbombs.ca
>-active cities: http://webcom.com/peace
>-send '(un)subscribe fnb-l'  to lists at tao.ca
>
>=3D=3D^=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>This email was sent to: Tom_Childs at Douglas.BC.CA
>
>EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84tq1.a9F5la
>Or send an email to: stoptheWTO-unsubscribe at topica.com
>
>T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
>http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
>=3D=3D^=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
>--=======7A1A3B6B=======
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-avg=cert; 
>x-avg-checked=avg-ok-799C2FA
>Content-Disposition: inline
>
>
>---
>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.295 / Virus Database: 159 - Release Date: 11/1/01
>
>--=======7A1A3B6B=======--
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>Sign Up for NetZero Platinum Today
>Only $9.95 per month!
>http://my.netzero.net/s/signup?r=platinum&refcd=PT97
>
>
>
>--

-- 

Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu