A brief note from Cancun

I apologize for the brevity of this note, but I don’t have much time. As many of you know, the World Trade Organization started its 5th Ministerial in Cancun today, Sept. 10. We started our public protest against the WTO meeting on the 8th with a beach action where about 60 nude activists used their bodies to spell out NO OMC (NO WTO). It broke the tension as it happened without inceident, fine or arrest in the highly militarized hotel zone of Cancun. The 9th was to be a day of direct action. It ended up being very small and short, with about 1,500 activists blocking one of the two entrances to the hotel zone and holding it for about 2 hours. Even in that time, the taffic on the main road into Cancun backed up to the airport, which is roughly 12 miles from where the protest was held.

Today, the 10th was much larger, more dramatic and, sadly, sorrowful. The campesinos, largely organized under the Via Campesina banner, had planned to take their march to the convention center where the WTO is meeting to manifest to them their rejection of the WTO’s involvement in agriculture. The march (in my estimate) drew 10,000 – 15,000 demonstrators, all of whom marched to the first police baracade of the hotel zone and challenged it. First in line was the 180 member delegation of Korean farmers and tade unionists. In celebration of what was described to me as the Korean day of the dead, they carried with them a casket, which they planned to deliver to the convention center but in the meantime were using to batter the fence constructed by the police. With the fence standing, the president of an association of Korean farmers scaled the fence. The man wore a sign saying “The WTO kills farmers” and while sitting on the top of the fence he called out a few words about the WTO and then stabbed himself in the chest with a knife. Apparently, the delegation wanted to symbolize the death that the WTO’s policies carry to the world. When it was clear that the delegation wouldn’t be able to deliver the casket, the gentleman decided to carry that message to the wrold by offering his life to represent the death brought on by neoliberalism. Many didn’t notice that he had stabbed himself and thought that he was either suffering a heart attack or that the police had injured him. We held the area for several more hours, destroying the greater part of the fence. As people started to leave, the news arrived that our Korean comrade had died in the hospital from the self inflicted wound. A commemoration was held in the street in front of the general hospital in which songs were sung and prayers and words were offered up in honor of the deceased. There will be wakes celebrated all night tonight and then actions in his honor tomorrow. At one point in the commemoration ceremony held in the street, representatives from the Black Bloc presented the Korean delegation with a black banner with the words “Love, Respect, Solidarity Forever” and the circled A painted on in red. After the Koreans were presented with the banner, they announced that they would join the anarchist youth in the streets tomorrow.