91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳

BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS
& LISA MACDONALD

SYDNEY — Anti-corporate globalisation and anti-war protesters won a significant victory on November 13-15, when they successfully defied a NSW government ban on protest marches during the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which was being held at the Novotel Hotel at Olympic Park, Homebush.

In scenes reminiscent of 1970s Queensland under the rule of premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's National Party government, police chief Dick Adams announced on November 12 that all marches during the WTO meeting were banned.

The ban was imposed despite the fact that protest organisers had stated repeatedly that the demonstrations would be peaceful and most actions would be nowhere near the meeting site.

As Margo Kingston, writing on the Sydney Morning Herald's web site, noted: “It meant that the only way for dissenters to the WTO agenda to make their point to the public — a street march — had been outlawed.[Adams] trashed fundamental civil liberties in the state of NSW.”

The announcement of the ban followed a week of a capitalist media scare campaign about anticipated “protester violence”, which was clearly aimed at scaring people away from the protests and demonising those that did take part.

Despite this intimidation, successful marches were held. On November 13, the Free Movement of the People march, in support of refugees' rights, attracted 500 people (see report on page 5) to its starting point at Sydney Town Hall. On November 14, 1200 demonstrators, including several hundred from interstate, marched through the Sydney CBD, protesting outside the headquarters of multinational corporations, and the US consulate and PM John Howard's office along the route. On November 15, 500 activists marched for an hour to reach Olympic Park for a rally outside the Novotel.

November 14

Protest activities on November 14 got underway with around 800 mainly young protesters gathering at 8am in Martin Place, near the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They were organised in a number of blocs and contingents, the main ones being the socialist groups, including Resistance, the International Socialist Organisation and Socialist Alternative, as well as the Orange Bloc, which is influenced by anarchist and autonomist ideas, the Reclaim the Streets contingent, the Yellow Bloc, initiated by university education collectives, and the Green Bloc.

Liz, from the Yellow Bloc, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that she was at the protests to “connect this big meeting with the Nelson Review, full up-front fees and funding cuts to subjects like the arts that do not make money”. Tara, from the Palestinian Social Forum Group, said she was there because the “WTO is an economic version of the military used against the world and against Palestine”.

Protest organiser and Resistance national coordinator Simon Butler said: “We are here for the same reason that 1 million people mobilised in Florence on November 9: to oppose the economic and social terror that the WTO inflicts on the people of the Third World and the military terror that the US, British and Australian governments want to inflict on the people of Iraq.”

Just after 9am, the protesters defied the ALP government's ban and marched up of Martin Place in a passionate, colourful and musical procession, chanting “No racism, no war: this is what we're fighting for” and “No Borders, no nations, no deportations”. One protester, wearing a George Bush mask, rode a plastic missile inscribed with the words “Democracy, we deliver”.

At the US consulate, protesters burned a US flag and chanted “Exxon, Mobile, BP, Shell: take your war and go to hell”. Three protesters were dragged off by police for lying down on the pavement, naked except for the “blood” painted on their bodies.

The marchers then made their way to Australasian Correctional Management's headquarters, which operates Australia's refugee prisons. Passers-by waved, shouted and tooted their support all along the way. Before they reached ACM, more than a dozen police on horses charged a small group of protesters who had marched down a side street. A journalist who works for the Australian newspaper, Patricia Karvelas, was trampled by horses and severely bruised. About a dozen people were arrested but most charges were later dropped.

For all the media hype about “violence” generated by NSW police minister Michael Costa and the police chiefs, this was the only “incident” in the more than six hours of protests in the city. It was provoked by the police. They were responsible for the only serious injury to occur all day.

At 11am, the marchers arrived at Sydney Town Hall to join an anti-war rally which had been initiated by Resistance, and supported by the Greens, Socialist Alliance, the International Socialist Organisation and other groups. Simon Cunich, from the Illawarra Grammar Social Action Group and a Resistance member, told the crowd that many high school students had walked out of class for the rally because they want to stop the war on Iraq before it starts.

The now 1200-strong march moved off to a nearby McDonald's, where the Socialist Alliance's Sam Wainwright spoke about the US drive to war, most immediately against Iraq. “How can these people going to catch the terrorists? They are the terrorists! What we need is a movement like that which stopped the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s. Such a movement is being born, as the 40,000 people who recently protested in Melbourne against the war on Iraq showed. We need a movement that is about the self-organisation of ordinary people.”

When the march returned to the US consulate, Denis Doherty, an organiser of the Walk Against the War to be held in Sydney on November 30, and Palestinian activist Nikolai Haddad addressed the protesters.

At noon, the marchers arrived at an almost empty Hyde Park to join a “fair trade” lunchtime rally which had been organised by some trade unions and NGOs. By the time the speakers began, 300 more people had arrived.

Pat Ranald, from the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, told the crowd that she believed in free trade, but that it must also be democratic. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron said he was for “fair trade, not free trade”, and called for the reform of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank by the inclusion of social protection clauses. Drop the Debt campaigner Father Brian Gore underlined how the ugly sisters of the WTO — the IMF and the World Bank — also “screw the poor of the world”.

Predictably, given the government's failure to intimidate protesters off the streets, Costa was quoted in the Daily Telegraph the next day as saying that the “atrocious behaviour by this ratbag element who tried to seize Sydney streets shows clearly these people came here to cause trouble, not to protest”.

“Costa is absolutely wrong”, Iggy Kim, one of the protest organisers, told GLW. “We were peaceful and our message of opposition to the war and the WTO was clear.”

November 15

On the morning of November 15, 500 people marched from Flemington train station to the Novotel in Olympic Park. All trains to Olympic Park station had been cancelled and hundreds of riot police, some with attack dogs, swarmed around the venue. The protesters assembled in the police-designated “protest area”, a heavily fenced car park about 500 metres from the Novotel, chanting and being entertained by a troupe of “anti-corporate cheer leaders” from Lismore.

When a small group from the Orange Bloc began to shake a section of the fence, the police charged, knocking dozens of people to the ground and dragging others away to a portable lock-up inside the fence.

Forty people were arrested before the protesters met to discuss the problem of being outnumbered by police in a very isolated location. They voted overwhelmingly to unite and march back to Flemington station, then travel back to Town Hall to hold a march.

The police, in a blatant political manoeuvre to break up the united and very spirited “victory march” that was proceeding out of Olympic Park, suddenly formed a human chain across the only exit road, causing fear and panic among the protesters. Once again, however, the marchers overcame the police provocation and intimidation and, with chants of “This is not a police state, we have the right to demonstrate”, regrouped behind the police lines and marched to the train station.

Commenting on the NSW Labor government's handling of the protests, Kim told GLW: “We fought and won an important victory for civil liberties this week. If the politicians had got away with removing our right to march when the WTO is in town, it would have been that much easier for them to ban any protest march in the future, whether it be against war, for workers' rights, or in defence of civil rights. It was a mistake for some trade union leaders and organisers of the fair trade rally in Hyde Park to pull back from organising a march after their rally on the pretext that it might provoke violence. They allowed themselves to be intimidated out of asserting a hard-won democratic right. The only way to stop attacks on our civil liberties is to defy those attacks, peacefully and in large numbers.”

From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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