Victory over the WTO in Cancun! A Report-Back from Food First

Concerning Rosset's article::
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/newswire/display_any/786


Peter Rosset, you have just included yourself amongst the crowd of spineless progressives. It is easy to drop the name of Marcos or continously identify with movements such as MST but when it comes to the militant tactics used by such organizations you back down behind your comfortable californian lifestyle.
Calling those that come prepared for a police riot "paid provocateurs" is disgracefull. These people, while not risking a fraction of what those of the south risk to stand up against neoliberalism, are still risking a whole lot for the defence of others.
While you were taking part in your "collective we" symbolically pulling down the fence, part of those that clashed with the police on the 10th were building a barricade against hundreds of police that were piling up behind the protest. Did you notice this? These supposed provocateurs came ready but obviously did not provoke anything. Not to mention that the one group that spearheaded the battle against the police on the 10th were the Koreans together with many green hat and bandana wearing members of via campesina.
Since you seem to be so moved by the koreans i am going to end this with a quote from one of them in Cancun: "Are you protestors? Or are you fighters?"

No one needs professional California activists, who have never had to work a day in lives, telling them what kind of tactics are acceptable.

Why doesn't Mr. Peter Bigmouth shut it for once, and let the rest of us have a turn?

A couple thoughts about the above comments:

About stonethrowers:
I agree that Peter writing off everyone throwing rocks as provocatuers is mistaken.

However, I've heard several people with no problem with the tactic say they believe some folks may have been provocatuers, though others were not. It's a fact of life that gov'ts in the US and Europe use provocatuers at action, at times dressing as black bloc-- with sometimes seriously negative consequences.

About Peter and Food First
Peters division of Cancun resistance into "provocatuers" and "legitimate protesters" is wrong and divisive and he should be called out on it and folks are understandably pissed. . However to similarly dismiss Peter and Food First as "imperialist scum" or "spineless progressives" is just as mistaken.

For a staff driven US based NGO, Food First, unlike many northern NGO's, Food First does well at actualy supporting social movements in the global south (where some of there staff hail from) and poor peoples movements in the north. They helped raise 80 thousand dollars to help bus transport for Mexican campesinos to Cancun, heavily supported the Via Campesina gathering/confernece in Cancun, and have consitently helped to hightlight the voices of those most effected by capitalist globaliztion in both the north and the south. In fact I think their work offers a challenge to the rest of us who identify as part of the anti-globalization/capitalist movements.

I don't see enough of us doing long term solidarity for other grassroots social movements most effected by globalization, education of people in the US, who need to be patiently dialogued with and encouraged to join the global uprising from the US control room of the empire.

Sometimes indymedia comments are like my housemates nasty notes to each other. I'd encourage a little more respect, open-mindedness and pretending your talking face to face with people you are, like it or not, part of a diverse movement of movements against a doomsday empire with.

The WTO meeting in Cancun failed, but it had little to do with the protestors outside.

In the last round of trade negotiations, developing countries were asked to lower their trade barriers, and in many cases they did. In exchange, the current Doha round was going to concentrate on developed countries lowering their trade barriers, especially agriculture subsidies.

The US came to Cancun saying "we can talk about it, but don't expect much". The European Union came to Cancun saying "basically, no way, we will continue to subsidize our white farmers at the expense of African ones."

The developing countries basically said "Screw you, this round was about developed countries dropping trade barriers" and they walked out.

The failure of Cancun was a failure of the US and EU to embrace free trade policies.