Bienvenidos a todos a Cancun

Bienvenidos a Todos a Cancún (Everyone Welcome to Cancún)
By Joe Rigney
September 11, 2003

Cancun is not the type of place I would normally spend a week of my life. Like Key West or Maui, it is a land of opulent hotels and decadent excess. But this week, tourists visiting Cancun were in for a big surprise as they were greeted by fences and a dictatorial police presence that was the opposite of the laid back ambiance most people associate with a Mexican vacation.

But when the World Trade Organization, or WTO, has a meeting in your town, worldwide opposition causes host countries to lock-down the streets. In this way, corporate led globalization continues forward, despite resistance from those whose daily lives are affected by trade liberalization.

If anyone knows first hand the negative effects of international trade agreements, it is the campesino of Mexico. What free trade has meant to the poor farmer is that subsidized agricultural products from the United States and Canada can flood their country, driving down prices in an already depressed market.

Like most of the world, real wages have dropped in Mexico since the imposition of Free Trade agreements like the WTO. Even in the United States, the average worker has felt the pinch of corporate globalization.

On Wednesday, September 10th 2003, Via Campesino, an organization with ties to farmers around the world, led a march demanding that their voices be heard. Chanting “¡Viva Zapata, sigue la lucha!” (“Long live Zapata, the struggle continues”), these campesinos brought to life the spirit of the Mexican Revolutionary leader who gave them land reform many years ago.

Joining the group were international activists, including a contingent of South Korean farmers. Held in thrall to United States military occupation for over fifty years, Koreans understand not only the impacts of corporate globalization, but the relation between imperial colonization and militarization.

To demonstrate the sanctity of corn in their lives, a group of indigenous farmers carried an alter with corn and soil through the streets of downtown Cancun. Full ears and individual seeds were flanked by chalices of burning incense and lit candles. Used by the people of Mexico for thousands of years, corn is life; it is the living representation of their culture, the root of their society.

For the world, Mexico is where corn originated. Yet despite a law banning genetically modified crops from being planted, contamination of local corn varieties was found a few years ago. The threat of cultural extinction is being exacerbated by the WTO, where the United States is attempting to use the trade body to declare illegal trade barriers the laws of other countries that keep out genetically modified foods.

The march, more than 7,000 strong, advanced to the perimeter, where a large chain link fence had been erected. A line of Mexican police in riot gear holding shields stood behind this barrier, looking grim in the hot, tropical sun. Undaunted by the show of force, the demonstrators stopped at the fence and began banging it with sticks and fists, pulling and tearing.

The situation rapidly escalated as some of the most radical demonstrators began lobbing red paint and plastic bottles, then rocks and sticks at the police. Banners were hung, and then set on fire as provocation. The police responded with an equal level of violence by throwing rocks back into the crowd.

As the chaos increased, a South Korean farmer climbed the fence. I saw him try to light a fire, which was quickly put out. Then, a moment later, he fell from the fence into the crowd. I looked down and saw his chest covered in blood. He was then mobbed in a media frenzy reminiscent of a shark feed.

People yelled “medic,” and the mob was pushed back to make room for the fallen man. The intensity of the demonstration decreased momentarily as an opening was made to allow the medics to carry him through.

Although I stood within a few feet of this action, it was only later that night that I learned that the activist, Lee Kyung-hae, had committed suicide on top of the fence that afternoon by stabbing a knife into his heart.

Locked out of the meetings, ignored by the wealthy elite who made the decisions for his life, and faced with the destruction of his people, his family, and his livelihood, Lee committed the ultimate act of non-violent civil disobedience. He gave his own life as so many lives are taken everyday by the actions of the WTO.

Shortly after his body was removed, the action at the fence continued. Using the force of people power, the fence was breached by an opening made in one small section. About six members of Via Campesino ran inside, and waved forward their companions on the outside. They held up their hands, and gave no resistance as the police surrounded them and moved them away from the action.

The opening was quickly filled by a line of riot shields held by Mexican police, but the relentless crowd pushed against these shields, banging them with sticks and continuing to pelt them with rocks. The hole grew, as demonstrators continued pulling and ripping at the metal supports and the chain link fence.

Another section of fence was lifted and literally turned upside down, creating more openings for confrontation. The police continued throwing rocks back at the crowd, and I saw one woman standing next to me get pelted with a square foot of concrete in her face, smashing her glasses. She retreated, yelling for a medic.

I then felt the unmistakable taste of tear gas in my throat, and I expected that at any moment the air would be filled with gas and the streets with fleeing masses. But suddenly the Via Campesino truck approached, and through a loudspeaker the coordinator, Rafael Alegria, began saying “Compadres, pacifico. ¡No piedrando!” (“Friends, peace. Don´t throw stones!”)

Many people in the crowd began to clap and cheer in support, as the truck moved further into the center of the action. While some of the radical elements of the crowd booed and yelled back in anger, the majority of the crowd definitely did not wish to see the violence continue. Members of Via Campesino began to move their bodies between the police and the crowd, creating a human shield of peaceful protestors.

This moment marked a definite reduction in the intensity of the action. Although some people still threatened the police, the barrage of rocks and sticks subsided and calm descended on both sides of the barricade.

People continued to rally in gatherings near the fence, but no further chaos occurred. Corn seeds were placed on the street in front of the hole in the fence, spelling out “No OMC” (OMC stands for “Organización Mundial Comercio, the Spanish name for the WTO). The Korean group held a memorial in the place where their comrade had sacrificed his life.

Tearing down the fence on the road leading to the conference center where the WTO talks were being held was mostly a symbolic act. Had the demonstrators been able to break through the police line, at least four more fence lines faced them before they could have reached the meetings.

But breaking through the fence is one way for people to demonstrate their anger and their desire to be heard, to participate in the pronouncements made behind the fences that have been erected to keep them out of the decision making process.

And in this case there was a direct effect. On the morning following the demonstration, the entire fence line was gone. The next group of demonstrators wishing to have their voices heard will be able to approach that much closer to the closed doors of the trade negotiations.