La Bella y La Fea:
Mexico and the WTO (OMC)
by Almond with contributions from
I. Hansberg and Le Grace Jaguars
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"The Fourth World War is a total war, economic, social,
political, cultural and military. Everywhere today, every
aspect of our lives is being violently reorganized.
Everywhere the system is at work dissolving us, our
labor, our land, our culture into flows of
capital."
- Big Noise Films
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How ugly Mexico, how beautiful the people.! How ugly the
signs for McDonalds, Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, Carta Blanca,
VW, Pemex and the Hard Rock Cafe en Cancun!!!
The beauty of Mexico springs from the indian, the farmer
and the pace of life that flows strong, yet oozes slowly
from the humid flesh of markets and creeping traffic.
With the World Trade Organization (WTO) or even just a
continuation of neoliberalism there won’t be any real
indians or traditional farmers soon. And then the
vibrant public markets will fade away. Mexicos beauty
will be disfigured. All we will have is the culture of
the commercial market and the USA. Mexico will be dead.
La muerta de la Mexicana.
The zocalos and centros still remind one of the Mexico of
20 years ago, but there are so many cars everywhere, so
many rich people and spoiled kids and yet still just as
many poor and beggars. Poverty of the pocket and poverty
of the spirit grows daily. Nowhere is this more evident
than in Cancun. This impoverished city of 750,000 sits
precariously next to the glitziest example of globalized
decadence there is. Almost every hotel chain in the world
is represented along with numerous vulgarized nightclubs
and whorehouses.
A Journey Deep Inside Mexico
Our route to the WTO crossed the US border near Piedras
Negras, Mexico without being stopped and travelled all
the way to Cancun near the border with Belize. We had no
insurance and only crudely forged papers. We paid one $5
bribe to a local cop to keep him off our paper trail of
deception and we also had to pay a $25 bribe to get out
of a ticket for driving the wrong way on a oneway street
near Mexico City - would have only had to pay $5 but we
had only 20 dollar bills - smart we were but too rushed.
Our friends with perfect papers, a new car and 20
computers had their car and belongings seized at the
Laredo border and never made it down here at all.
Cancun: A Very Busy Place
If you judge an area's prosperity by its taxicabs and
diversity of businesses one would think that Cancun had a
million wealthy and middle class people. In reality, more
than half of the residents are poor. There are many taxis
because so few people can afford cars. Businesses thrive
from tourist related spin-offs that give some
neighborhoods a middle class appearance. Over a hundred
thousand people in Cancun live in very poor colonias many
lack electricity and water. Some the police never enter.
Cancun is hot and horribly humid. Malaria and Dengue
Fever are common. Conjunctivitis is epidemic. This is the
Third World that is locked in mortal combat with
capitalism and the US-EU empire. Mexicans I spoke with
did not consider the hotel district a part of Mexico,
though some may envy the empire fans that populate and
copulate in the luxuriating comforts of this other
Cancun.
SEPTEMBER 9, The Protests-La Lucha Sigue
Thousands of students, internationalists and campesinos
stormed the steel gate that barred our way to expressing
opposition to the profound and secret dealings of the
WTO. Students and anarchists charged the gate and hurled
rocks at the police. Some complained about the black
block and those who were being aggressive. The
internationalists were busy making plans for how to
infiltrate the hotel zone and shut down traffic to create
chaos and prevent business as usual.
That night I spoke to a large encampment of the Mexico
City student leadership and their members. The student
organization CGH grew out of the UNAM occupations of
the Mexico City University from mid 1999 to early 2000.
Following the violent expulsion of the remaining students
the organization went to Cancun in 2001 to protest the
Latin American World Economic Forum. There the police
were especially brutal and the students came back this
year hoping to have protection through the solidarity of
international activists and the media. It worked
Arduous years of organizing and continual police
repression had taken their toll on the Mexican students
and many factions and internal disputes threatened to
destroy the group. Groups that I am close to hoped that
through working together the students and the
internationalists would grow beyond their differences and
with successes at Cancun would come a new outlook and a
reason to move forward. This is what the Mexicans call a
simulacrum / a test that makes going back to debate
unnecessary.
I spoke out in support of the black block saying that I
understood their frustration and that if the whole
movement was not strong and effective how can we blame
the youth for turning to violence. Then I told the youth
to respect the campesino farmers who had planned a large
march for the next day. It worked.
Campesino Strength: The Power of Human Sacrifice
I arrived at the rally point for the Via Campesina march
with low expectations. Instantly, I was transformed, the
hairs stood up prickling against my neck. I knew that a
primal force of many thousands of farmers from Chiapas,
Oaxaca, Guerrero, Brazil and Korea was forming up around
me and surrounding me with destiny - and respect was
inherent. Every pore of everything and even the air was
charged and expectant. With machetes raised the peasant
farmers marched toward the steel wall at the point we
came to call the Kilometer Zero, meaning the first
kilometer toward the Convention Center and the WTO
meeting.
I left to go shopping for more rope and lock-down
devices. Shopping was a task which consumed most of my
time after seeking money and trying to get unlost from
finding my way home each night at 2 AM through a crazy
patch quilt neighborhood where the Comida No Bombas (Food
not Bombs) house hid among Cancun’s many barrios.
The steel wall at the Zero Kilometer had been heavily
reinforced by the military, but the campesinos with bolt
cutters, tools and raw strength quickly tore a 50-foot
hole in the wall and turned to face the thousands of well
armed and shielded troops arrayed in several rows before
them. Water cannons stood ready but were rarely used.
The momentum belonged to the campesinos, but as they
surged forward thugs hidden in the crowd threw rocks
striking the backs of several leaders heads, tear gas
followed and suddenly the crowd stalled. The police
began throwing stones and injured many people and a surge
of Black Blockers failed to recapture the crowd’s power.
Just as I arrived, a Korean activist farmer, president of
a large farmers group, rose up above the fence and
stabbed himself in protest of the WTO and his frustration
at the police tactics. Lee Kyung-hae died a few hours
later and his action helped slow and eventually derail
the talks.
Quiet settled over the crowd and amid the tears of many
activists present I entered the dead zone - the no/man's
land in front of the troops where the fence had been torn
down. Standing in this gap between the opposing sides I
could feel the energy that had exhausted itself there. I
have never seen or felt anything like it, it was an ugly
bruise, a wound and had an eerie sense like a hole in the
world, a sense of death and evil intentions. I lectured
the soldiers calling them animals, non/Mexicans and
begging them to tell me how they could fight on the side
of the rich, the narco/cartels and the greedy white
asshole pendejos . Most of the soldiers were young, poor
and indian. I left and rejoined my affinity group that
was preparing to hang a giant banner above the convention
center the next day.
"The 20th Century was a graveyard, and over a decade
after the end of the Third World War, The Cold War, the
world is still in flames fighting a new kind of war, the
Fourth World War"
from La Quatro Guerra, http://www.bignoisefilms.com
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Score One for the Good Gringos
Our banner drop from a 300 foot high crane went well
despite screw/ups and loosing half our gear in a scuffle
80 feet up between two large Mexican soldiers and a young
Hawaiian/American woman who refused to be dragged back
down. We embarrassed the Fox government and stuck our
message Que Se Vayan Todos / You Should ALL Leave / right
in the face and the windows of the nearby WTO Convention
center. Our corn symbol recognized the importance of
farmers and the need to ban genetic engineering. The
banner’s red fist represented dignity for indigenous
people, campesinos and workers.
Over the next several days numerous affinity groups snuck
into the Hotel District and shut down roads and caused
chaos for the police and delegates. The police refused to
arrest anyone and when they would load us on to buses to
get us out of the area, we made the best of it by
climbing up through the roof vents and chanting and
singing our slogans as we toured the often-blockaded city
streets. Almost every one we encountered waved and
whistled their support.
Flowers and Women; The Strength of a People United
As many as 10,000 people attended the final march to the
fence at Kilometer Zero. We demanded the end of the WTO
and commemorated the death of Lee Kyung-hae, who died in
protest of the WTO's agricultural policies. When the
march came to the police barricade another heavily
constructed mega-fence was largely dismantled by an all
female activist crew with an anarchist security cordon
Finally, the steel fence was tumbled by a Korean-led
contingent of hundreds of other activists who attached a
giant hemp rope to the fence and yanked it down
completely.
The action ended with the crowd holding long-stemmed
flowers high above their heads as we sang sad songs and
lamented the terrible powers before us. A big effigy of
the WTO and a huge US flag were burned as everyone
cheered and celebrated.
The next day as we occupied the beaches in the hotel
district, the Kenyans, Koreans and Indians walked out of
the WTO and the farce was ended at least for now.
The Carnival of Our Hearts Beat Their Guns and Hate,
But Where do We Lead Ourselves?
Despite the timidity of the security forces in Cancun our
actions were weak and uncoordinated. Our unity and the
fighting spirit in our hearts carried the day as we were
all deeply affected by the strength of the campesinos and
the death of Lee.
The poor countries who stood up to the US/EU Empire,
especially Kenya, Korea and India, were our heroes. Now
we can hope to press the advantage and scuttle any talk
of continued efforts toward the FTAA/ALCA. We can speak
as one against all forms of capitalism and join efforts
to isolate the US in its lies and fanatic militarism.
"Whenever the system encounters obstacles to their
process, whenever the people resist, it responds with a
war that pulverizes, liquefies, terrorizes. A war without
a battlefield, a war without identifiable sides. A war
that is everywhere, a 1000 civil wars, a war without end,
the 4th World War. On one side is a system of terrifying
violence and on the other side are all of us - all of us
who will stop this war."
- La Quatro Guerra http://www.bignoisefilms.com
"The Fourth World War is a total war, economic, social,
political, cultural and military. Everywhere today, every
aspect of our lives is being violently reorganized.
Everywhere the system is at work dissolving us, our
labor, our land, our culture into flows of
capital."
- http://www.bignoisefilms.com
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Contact: natureofchange@hotmail.com
deafwords@hotmail.com
USA 520 620 6900
Mexico: 044 998 8703741
Or message 998 107 6919
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