Two weeks ago in Miami at the FTAA ministerial, over 10,000 individuals came face to face with American democracy. Our freedoms were thrown in our faces. We were "protected" by 9,000 police and security, including over 2,000 riot police, who were all funded by an $8 billion expenditure from the Iraq spending fund. Operation American Freedom? Fences separated masses of people protesting in the streets from the administrators in a hotel making decisions. Democracy representative of whom?
Reporters dressed as and embedded within police ignored the violence against protesters, blatantly lying in their accounts of the events. For whom is the media working? Police provocateurs dressed as and attacking protesters enforced temporary laws against groups of people congregating in public. A right to peacefully assemble? Canisters of tear gas, taser guns, wooden clubs, rubber bullets, guns and tanks left thousands with bruises, burning eyes and fractured skulls and ribs. Homeland security from what? All protesters were targeted and arrested, but people of color and immigrants were beaten and tortured in jails. Police state?
There is war going on at home and abroad. The rights of human beings--in Iraq, Miami, Afghanistan, Colombia, etc.--are being disregarded if they get in the way of a corporate and administrative agenda--in this case, the FTAA. When 10,000 human beings from around the world gather to protest an agreement that is being negotiated by 34 people and will affect them directly, shouldn't the logical response be to question that agreement? Instead, $8 billion is spent to repress the protests and falsely portray them as creating nothing except mayhem.
The media ignored the reasons why protesters were really there and turned the little coverage that did exist into a Hollywood showdown, a spectacle of actors playing their proper roles. Spectacle and street theater play an important role in resistance. However, the media and the police transform the demonstrations into spectacles without subjectivity, removing the human from the protest, changing the issue from thousands of people resisting the FTAA into a dangerous mob resisting arrest. Those watching the news can easily turn them into a threatening populace instead of realizing that the protesters are "everyday" people.
This militarization--the military was against the thousands of steelworkers, AFL-CIO members, students and other unionized and non-unionized workers that publicly demanded justice--transformed the protest into a battle from the start. The protests were peaceful except for the beatings and attacks by police. The one isolated case of aggression against police was the throwing of tear gas canisters and water bottles back into the herds of the soldiers, as the police were calling themselves that day. This occurred after the armed police had deliberately misinformed and attacked the protesters. The police announced that as long as the protest remained nonviolent, it could continue. Less than three minutes later, they shot the crowd with tear gas without reason or warning. They continued to shoot the unarmed protesters repeatedly with rubber bullets and used taser guns and sticks to disperse them through the streets of Miami.
Many were then arrested on the street for being in groups of eight or more, which for the week of protests was specially declared an illegal demonstration. After the ministerial, the unconstitutional law was retracted. Those arrested were held in makeshift cells: chain link cages set up in parking garages. There, those arrested for walking down the street were cuffed for 10 hours straight and refused food or water for 11, as reported separately by individuals, including a student from UNC who was arrested after following police orders to disperse.
The 34 delegates from the Americas could have easily been, and probably were, oblivious to the protests going on just blocks away. The job of the fence surrounding the InterContinental and the thousands of police were more than just to keep the protesters from getting near the talks. They were a vulgar display of the separation of individuals from laws and agreements that will lead to the loss of their jobs, consolidation of the media, further privatization of their natural resources and the increase in prices of medicine.
When and if the FTAA is signed, Miami will become the official site of the ministerials, bringing in capital, raising the prestige of the Florida and Miami governments and raising the property values. Interestingly enough, the heads of Florida and U.S. government are brothers. The Miami Herald owns land capital in Miami and will gain from the news coverage of the returning ministerials. The police department under Chief Timoney gets $8 billion and furthers a reputation of cracking down on violence and being able to handle thousands of unarmed and peaceful protesters, with help from the media in portraying the protesters as violent.
Timoney was transferred to Miami from Philadelphia, where he became famous for violently breaking up protests. Before that, he succeeded at raising the number of civilians shot dead in police custody by 53.3 percent in New York City. The Miami media did not discuss this as they applauded Timoney by following him around on his bike during the protest, watching him as he boosted morale among his riot police and encouraged them to continue with their tactics.
Despite all of this, the "Miami Model" of handling a protest is being triumphed and is to be used as an example by police and the government. We should use it as just one example of the fascism that is under our noses: "The New American Century," the centralization of authority through the Patriot Act and other unconstitutional laws, repression of opposition using terror tactics, militant nationalism at home and throughout the world, censorship and consolidation of media through Clear Channel and corporate ownership, privatization of water and other natural resources, uniting Americans through hatred of supposed domestic and international enemies, and racism in the form of anti-immigration and racist zoning, drug and probation laws.
Days ago, as Bush signed a $401 billion defense authorization bill, he affirmed, "America's military is standing between our country and grave danger." From the events in Miami, I can only conclude that to Mr. Bush, the grave danger are the voices of thousands of people in the Americas. Perhaps the people of the Americas need to launch their own Operation Freedom.
Emily LaDue is a Trinity sophomore. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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