Teamsters and tree-huggers united: Seattle’s 1999 massive anti-WTO protests

May 23, 2008 by James
Filed under: activism, green culture, spirituality, video

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A new, semi-fictionalized depiction of the 1999 anti-WTO protests, “Battle In Seattle,” has just debuted at the Seattle International Film Festival. The film distilled hundreds of hours of video of the actual demonstrations and of the horrific violence visited upon protesters by the Seattle PD and the surrounding cities’ police departments.

After writing this post, I watched the aforementioned trailer and started crying, remember the intensity of those few days. If the trailer portrays the film’s content, then Stuart Townsend has done an astonishing job of accurately capturing an historic event in both American and world history. Check out the images at the film’s website: they do justice to the protesters actions, including the group of demonstrators dressed up as ladybugs, as I saw protesters dressed up as turtles to protest the WTO’s actions toward the environment.

The below photo was not staged: it really happened. I witnessed lines of riot police with no identification badges marching lock step, looking like the storm-troopers from Star Wars, advancing on peaceful protesters, firing tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets on demonstrators with no provocation. The story was that because advanced intelligence had freaked out the Seattle PD, they had consulted with European police regarding riot gear and it certainly looked as if they had done so. I was astonished to witness this on American soil.

Seattle Police officer fires plastic pellets at point blank range into a group of demonstrators attempting to prohibit access to the WTO at the Washington State Convention Center on 30 November 1999 (Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer).

I was there and was tear-gassed by the cops in 1999. Although I did not position myself in any way other than to peacefully and nonviolently protest against the WTO and the USA’s transnational corporate-dominated federal governmental policies, I was attacked while exercising my American constitutional and universal human rights to dissent. I went because I was compelled to do so and felt like I had to make a stand against the WTO, along with everyone else going to Seattle. It was very hard-core, organized peacefully, and was the largest and most successful civil disobedience in which I have EVER been involved. This is saying a lot, as I was an ACT-UP San Francisco activist and helped found it in its early days, not its later nuttier devolution.

The story is that the Seattle PD used so much tear gas that they ran out of it and began to use military CS-gas. Concussion grenades and flash bombs were used against people peacefully protesting all over the downtown. I personally witnessed numerous injuries from these devices that are meant to scare the living HELL out of you, trigger a panic response and make you run, and that are so loud they can actually knock you out if you are close enough to them.

Countless cell groups organized independently with one nonviolent goal of civil disobedience in mind: to shut down the city and make it very difficult for the WTO participants to carry on their warmongering, climate-smashing, mega-corporate work under the guise of “world trade”.

At one point, I looked out over the beautiful city of Seattle and could see for about a mile into the downtown: literally every intersection was blockaded by protesters as far as the eye could see, all the way to the very core of Seattle. I witnessed a cop on a motorcycle trying to run over a guy’s leg, simply because he was blockading our group’s intersection by sitting down with others, chain-linked through pipes with a group of other protesters. What scared the hell out of the cops was that this was such a massive and well-executed protest that it freaked them out. Think: Teamsters, tree-huggers, students, professionals, etc.: united in an exceptionally well-organized protest.

The Teamsters were awesome! They brought a huge flatbed truck loaded with huge speakers that pumped out rock and roll for everyone. Not only were these guys organized and part of the entire undertaking, they were also hot and sexy!!

After being tear-gassed and treated by a First Responder, I discovered that the cops were actually going after the First Responders - who were identified by arm bands for easy location by the injured - and arresting them, so that we could not help and support people. I thought, not on my watch! I take the work of helping and healing seriously, having been an RN for 30 years. So, I became a First-Responder to fill the ranks of those who were literally being snatched from the streets by the cops. We used a solution to remove tear gas from the faces and eyes of protesters and bystanders caught up in the police violence. For more information about tear gas and its effects, check out New York City’s Department of Health article on Tear Gas/Riot Control Agents.

Because it became a cat-and-mouse situation in the downtown, some of us took refuge in the lower level of Pike’s Place Market. A security guard kept watch for us and I will never forget him. He came down after about 20-30 minutes to tell us that the cops were on their way, so we had to evacuate our injured. One of the injured protesters was a young Canadian woman who was just a few feet away from one of the flash bomb-concussion grenades when it went off and she blacked out, pitched forward, and fell face down on her nose. We had to run to avoid capture, taking our wounded with us.

All of this happened on American soil and was perpetrated by a city government in league with transnational corporate powers against Americans and visitors who came to actively and peacefully dissent. I was there, it was real, and it was incredible. As far as I’m concerned, this massive and highly successful protest was under-reported because our government is still afraid of its own people exercising our rights.