On 30 November 1999, downtown Seattle was turned into a battleground. When I was able to open my eyes, I saw lying next to me a young man, 19, maybe 20 at the oldest. He was in shock, twitching and shivering uncontrollably from being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed at close range. His burned eyes were tightly closed, and he was panting irregularly. Then he passed out. He went from excruciating pain to unconsciousness on a sidewalk wet from the water that a medic had poured over him to flush his eyes - like a young boy in bed.

This is what I remember about the violence. There was almost none until police attacked demonstrators that Tuesday in Seattle. Michael Meacher, environmen t minister of the United Kingdom, said afterward: "What we hadn't reckoned with was the Seattle Police Department who single-handedly managed to turn a peaceful protest into a riot." There was no police restraint, despite what Mayor Paul Schell kept proudly assuring TV viewers all day.

Instead, there were rubber bullets, which Schell kept denying all day. In the end, more copy and video was given to broken windows than broken teeth. As I tried to find my way down Sixth Street after the tear gas and pepper spray, I couldn't see. Anita Roddick found and guided me. When your eyes fail, your ears take over. I could hear acutely. What I heard was anger, dismay, shock. For many people, including the police, this was their first direct action. Demonstrators who had taken non-violent training were astonished at the police brutality. I heard young voices, incredulous, stunned. The demonstrators were students, their professors, clergy, lawyers, and medical personnel. They held signs against Burma and violence. They dressed as butterflies.

More than 1,500 NGO's [non-governmental organizations] registered with the World Trade Organization. More than 700 organizations and between 40,000 and 60,000 people took part in the protests. These groups and citizens sense a cascading loss of human and labour rights in the world. Seattle was not the beginning but simply the most striking statement of citizens struggling against a worldwide corporate-financed oligarchy - in effect, a plutocracy.

Oligarchy and plutocracy are not polite terms. They often are used to describe "other" countries where a small group of wealthy people rule, but not the "first world" - the United States, Japan, Germany or Canada. The World Trade Organization, however, is trying to cement into place that corporate plutocracy. Already, the world's top 200 companies have twice the assets of 80 percent of the world's people. And this polarisation and concentration of wealth is increasing. Global corporations represent a new empire. With massive amounts of capital at their disposal, any of which can be used to influence politicians and the public as and when deemed necessary, all democratic institutions are diminished and at risk.

But the mainstream media, consistently problematic in their coverage of any type of protest, had an even more difficult time understanding and covering both the issues and activists in Seattle. No charismatic leader led. No religious figure engaged in direct action. No movie stars starred. There was no alpha group. The Ruckus Society, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and hundreds more were there, coordinated primarily by cell phones, emails and the Direct Action Network (DAN). They were up against the Seattle Police Department, the Secret Service and the FBI - to say nothing of the media coverage and the WTO itself.

Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist and author of an elegy to globalisation entitled The Lexus and the Olive Tree, angrily wrote that the demonstrators were "a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960s fix". Not so. They were organized, educated and determined. They were human rights activists, labour activists, indigenous people, people of faith, steel workers and farmers. They were forest activists, environmentalists, social justice workers, students, and teachers. And they wanted the WTO to listen. They were speaking on behalf of a world that has not been made better by globalisation. Income disparity is growing rapidly. The difference between the top and bottom quintiles has doubled in the past 30 years. Eighty-six percent of the world's goods go to the top 20 percent; the bottom fifth get 1 percent.

During the day, the anarchist black blocs were in full view. Numbering about 100, they could have been arrested at any time but the police were so weighed down by their own equipment, they literally couldn't run. The black blocs came with tools (crowbars, hammers, acid-filled eggs) and hit lists. They knew they were going after Fidelity Investments, but not Charles Schwab. Starbucks, but not Tully's. The GAP, but not REI.

Fidelity Investments, because they are large investors in Occidental Petroleum, the oil company most responsible for the violence against the U'wa tribe in Columbia. Starbuck's, because of their non-support of fair-traded coffee. The GAP, because of the Fisher family's purchase of Northern California forests.

They targeted multinational corporations whom they see as benefiting from repression, exploitation of workers and low wages.

According to one anarchist group, the ACME collective: "Most of us have been studying the effects of the global economy, genetic engineering, resource extraction, transportation, labour practices, elimination of indigenous autonomy, animal rights and human rights, and we've been doing activism on these issues for many years. We are neither ill-informed nor inexperienced." They don't believe we live in a democracy, do believe that property damage (windows and tagging primarily) is a legitimate form of protest and that it is not violent unless it harms or causes pain to a person. For the black blocs, breaking windows is intended to break the spells cast by corporate hegemony, an attempt to shatter the smooth exterior facade that covers corporate crime and violence.

Then there was a group of 300 children dressed brightly as turtles. The costumes were part of a serious complaint against the WTO. When the US attempted to block imports of shrimp caught in the same nets that capture and drown 150,000 sea turtles each year, the WTO called the block "arbitrary and unjustified." Thus far in every environmental dispute that has come before the WTO, its three-judge panels deliberate in secret, and have ruled for business - against the environment. The panel members are selected from lawyers and officials who are not educated in biology, the environment, social issues, or anthropology.

Opening ceremonies for the WTO 's Third Ministerial were to have been held that Tuesday morning at the Paramount Theater near the Convention Center. Police had ringed the theater with Metro buses touching bumper to bumper. The protesters surrounded the outside of that steel circle. Only a few hundred of the 5,000 delegates made it inside, as police were unable to provide safe corridors for members and ambassadors. The theater was virtually empty when US trade representative and meeting co-chair Charlene Barshevsky was to have delivered the opening keynote. Instead, she was captive in her hotel room a block from the meeting site. WTO Executive Director Michael Moore was said to have been apoplectic.

Mayor Paul Schell stood despondently, near the stage. Since no scheduled speakers were present, Kevin Danaher, Medea Benjamin, and Juliet Hill from Global Exchange went to the lectern and offered to begin a dialogue in the meantime. The WTO had not been able to come to a pre-meeting consensus on the draft agenda. The NGO community, however, had drafted a consensus agreement about globalisation - and the three thought this would be a good time to present it, even if the hall had only a desultory number of delegates.

Although the three were credentialed WTO delegates, the sound system was quickly turned off and the police arm-locked and handcuffed them. Medea's wrist was sprained. All were dragged off stage and arrested. It mirrored how the WTO has operated since its birth in 1995. Listening to people is not its strong point. WTO rules runs roughshod over local laws and regulations. It relentlessly pursues the elimination of any strictures on the free flow of trade, including how a product is made, by whom it is made, or what happens when it is made. By doing so, the WTO is eliminating the ability of countries and regions to set standards, to express values, or to determine what they do or don't support. Child labour, prison labour, forced labor, substandard wages and working conditions cannot be used as a basis to discriminate against goods. Nor can environmental destruction, habitat loss, toxic waste production, and the presence of transgenic materials or synthetic hormones cannot be used as the basis to screen or stop goods from entering a country.

But while the Global Exchange was temporarily silenced, the Direct Action Network's plan was working brilliantly outside the Convention Center. The plan was simple: insert groups of trained non violent activists into key points downtown, making it impossible for delegates to move. DAN had hoped that 1,500 people would show up. Close to 10,000 did. The 2,000 people who began the march to the Convention Center at 7am from Victor Steinbrueck Park and Seattle Central Community College were comprised of affinity groups and clusters whose responsibility was to block key intersections and entrances. Participants had trained for many weeks in some cases, for many hours in others. Each affinity group had its own mission and was self-organized.

The streets around the Convention Center were divided into 13 sections and individual groups and clusters were responsible to hold these sections. There were also "flying groups" that moved at will from section to section, backing up groups under attack as needed. The groups were further divided into those willing to be arrested and those who were not. As protestors were beaten, gassed, clubbed and pushed back, a new group would replace them. Throughout most of the day, using a variety of techniques, groups held intersections and key areas downtown. The protests were organized through a network of cell phones, bullhorns and signals. All decisions prior to the demonstrations were reached by consensus. Minority views here heeded and included. The one agreement shared by all was no violence, physical or verbal, no weapons, no drugs or alcohol. There were no charismatic leaders barking orders. There was no command chain. There was no one in charge.

The meeting couldn't start. Demonstrators were everywhere. Private security guards locked down the hotels. The downtown stores were shut. Hundreds of delegates were on the street trying to get into the Convention Center. No one could help them. For WTO delegates accustomed to an ordered corporate or governmental world it was a calamity.

Up Pike toward Seventh and to Randy's and my right on Sixth, protestors faced armoured cars, horses and police in full riot gear. In between, demonstrators ringed the Sheraton to prevent an alternative entry to the Convention Center. At one point, police guarding the steps to the lobby pummeled and broke through a crowd of protestors to let eight delegates in. On Sixth Street, Sergeant Richard Goldstein asked demonstrators seated on the street in front of the police line "to cooperate" and move back 40 feet. No one understood why, but that hardly mattered. No one was going to move. He announced that 'chemical irritants' would be used if they did not leave. The police were anonymous, black ghosts. No facial expressions, no face. You could not see their eyes. They were masked Hollywood caricatures burdened with 60 to 70 pounds of weaponry. These were not the men and women of the 6th precinct.They were the Gang Squads and the SWAT teams of the Tactical Operations Divisions, closer in training to soldiers from the School of the Americas than local cops on the beat. Behind them and around were special forces from the FBI, the Secret Service, even the CIA. The police were almost motionless. They were equipped with:

1. US military standard M40A1 double canister gas masks.

2. uncalibrated, semi-automatic, high velocity Autocockers loaded with solid plastic shot.

3. Monadnock disposable plastic cuffs.

4. Nomex slash-resistant gloves.

5. Commando boots.

6. Centurion tactical leg guards.

7. combat harnesses.

8. DK5-H pivot-and-lock riot face shields.

9. black Monadnock P24 polycarbonate riot batons with TrumBull stop side handles.

10. No.2 continuous discharge CS (orto-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile) chemical.

11. grenades.

12. M651 CN (chloroacetophenone) pyrotechnic grenades.

13. T16 Flameless OC Expulsion Grenades.

14. DTCA rubber bullet grenades (Stingers).

15. M-203 (40mm) grenade launchers.

16. First Defense MK-46 Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) aerosol tanks with hose and wands.

17. 60 caliber rubber ball impact munitions.

18. lightweight tactical Kevlar composite ballistic helmets.

19. combat butt packs.

20. 30 cal. thirty-round mag pouches.

21. and, Kevlar body armor.

None of the police had visible badges or forms of identification.

The demonstrators seated in front of the black-clad ranks were equipped with hooded jackets for protection against rain and chemicals. They carried toothpaste and baking powder for protection of their skin, and wet cotton cloths impregnated with vinegar to cover their mouths and noses after a tear-gas release. In their backpacks were bottled water and food for the day ahead.

Ten Koreans came around the corner carrying a 10-foot banner protesting genetically modified foods. They were impeccable in white robes, sashes, and headbands. One was a priest. They played flutes and drums and marched straight toward the police and behind the seated demonstrators. Everyone cheered at the sight. "The whole world is watching," the chanted. The sun broke through the gauzy clouds. It was a beautiful day. Over cell phones, we could hear the cheers coming from the labour rally at the football stadium. The air was still and quiet. We waited.

At 10am the police fired the first seven canisters of tear gas into the crowd. The whitish clouds wafted slowly down the street. The seated protestors were overwhelmed, yet most did not budge. Police poured over them. Then came the truncheons and the rubber bullets. I was standing with a couple hundred people who had ringed the hotel, arms locked. We watched as long as we could until the tear gas slowly enveloped us. We were several hundred feet from Sgt. Goldstein's 40-foot "cooperation" zone. Police pushed and truncheoned their way through and behind us. We had covered our faces with rags and cloth, snatching glimpses of the people being clubbed in the street before shutting our eyes. The gas was a fog through which people moved in slow, strange dances of shock and pain and resistance. Tear gas is a misnomer. Think about feeling asphyxiated and blinded. Breathing becomes laboured. Vision is blurred. The mind is disoriented. The nose and throat burn. It's not a gas, it's a drug. Gas-masked police hit, pushed and speared with the butt ends of their batons. We then sat down, hunched over and locked arms more tightly. By then, the tear gas was so strong our eyes couldn't open. One by one, our heads were jerked back from the rear and pepper was sprayed directly into each eye. It was very professional. Like hair spray from a stylist. Sssst. Sssst.

The Seattle Police had made a decision not to arrest people. Throughout the day, the affinity groups created through Direct Action stayed together. Tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray were used so much that by late afternoon, supplies ran low. What seemed like an afternoon lull or standoff was because police had used up all their stores. Officers combed surrounding counties for tear gas, sprays, concussion grenades and munitions.

As police restocked, the word came down from the White House to secure downtown Seattle or the WTO meeting would be called off. By late afternoon, the Mayor and Chief announced a 7pm curfew, "no protest" zones and declared the city under civil emergency. The police were fatigued and frustrated. Over the next seven hours and into the night, the police turned downtown Seattle into Beirut.

Lynn Robinson - Mail CrocodileClub.

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