The 1999 Seattle WTO protests, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Seattle, were a series of anti-globalization protests surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, where members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington on November 30, 1999. The Conference was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations.
The negotiations were quickly overshadowed by massive street protests outside the hotels and the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. The protests were nicknamed "N30", akin to J18 and similar mobilizations. The large scale of the demonstrations, estimated at no fewer than 40,000 protesters, dwarfed any previous demonstration in the United States against a world meeting of any of the organizations generally associated with economic globalization, such as the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.Seattle Police Department: The Seattle Police Department After Action Report: World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference Seattle, Washington November 29 – December 3, 1999. p. 41."Police estimated the size of this march [the labor march] in excess of 40,000."
The protests marked the reappearance of anarchism as a significant force within the Western far left, influenced subsequent social movements by spreading the black bloc strategy and drew widespread international attention to the anti-globalization movement. Locally, they led to the resignation of Norm Stamper, Seattle's police chief.
History
Background: Fall of the USSR, rebirth of anarchism, birth of anti-globalization From the 1970s onward, and even more so following the fall of the USSR and the 1990s, the anarchist movement underwent a rebirth in the West. Several factors drove this resurgence, including the evolution of capitalism at the end of the 20th century (offshoring, etc.), the end of state-communist support for Marxist–Leninist parties, and the fact that state-socialist and communist movements were increasingly discredited within the far left.
The anti-globalization movement formed during the same period and was influenced by the anarchists who joined it from the very beginning. Although not all anti-globalists were anarchists, the two movements largely converged; this resulted in the anti-globalization movement adopting anarchist political procedures and practices.
Previous mass demonstrations had taken place in Australia in December 1997, in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, and Darwin city centers.Seattle Explosion: 2 Years Too Late, Rhoderick Gates, Our Time, November 30, 1999.
Premises
Planning Planning for the actions began months in advance and included local, national, and international organizations. Among the most notable participants were national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Global ExchangeBogardus, Keven (September 22, 2004). Venezuela Head Polishes Image With Oil Dollars: President Hugo Chavez takes his case to America's streets. Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved February 22, 2010. (especially those concerned with labor issues, the environment, and consumer protection), labor unions (including the AFL–CIO), student groups, religion-based groups (Jubilee 2000), and anarchists (some of whom formed a black bloc).Anarchism: Two Kinds , Wendy McElroy. About market, violence, and anarchist reject to WTO. The protests also drew support from some political conservatives, such as American presidential candidate and commentator Pat Buchanan.
The coalition was loose, with some opponent groups focused on opposition to WTO policies (especially those related to free trade), with others motivated by prolabor, anticapitalist, or environmental agendas. Many of the NGOs represented at the protests came with credentials to participate in the official meetings, while also planning various educational and press events. The AFL–CIO, with cooperation from its member unions, organized a large permitted rally and march from Seattle Center to downtown.
However, others were more interested in taking direct action, including both civil disobedience and acts of vandalism and property destruction to disrupt the meeting. Several groups were loosely organized together under the Direct Action Network (DAN), with a plan to disrupt the meetings by blocking streets and intersections downtown to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center, where the meeting was to be held. The black bloc was not affiliated with DAN, but was responding to the original call for autonomous resistance actions on November 30 issued by People's Global Action.
Of the different coalitions that aligned in protest were the "teamsters and turtles" – a blue–green alliance consisting of the teamsters (trade unions) and environmentalists.Berg, John C. 2003, Teamsters and Turtles?: U.S. Progressive Political Movements in the 21st Century, Rowman & Littlefield
Corporations targeted Certain activists, including locals and an additional group of anarchists from Eugene, Oregon (where they had gathered that summer for a music festival), advocated more confrontational tactics, and conducted vandalism of corporate properties in downtown Seattle. In a subsequent communique, they listed the particular corporations targeted, which they considered to have committed corporate crime.
Lead-up months On July 12, the Financial Times reported that the latest United Nations Human Development report advocated "principles of performance for multinationals on labour standards, fair trade and environmental protection ... needed to counter the negative effects of globalisation on the poorest nations". The report itself argued, "An essential aspect of global governance is responsibility to people—to equity, to justice, to enlarging the choices of all".Globalization with a Human Face UNHDR, 1999
On July 16, Helene Cooper of The Wall Street Journal warned of an impending "massive mobilization against globalization" being planned for the end-of-year Seattle WTO conference. Next day, the London Independent newspaper savaged the WTO and appeared to side with the organizers of the rapidly developing storm of protest:
The way it has used [its] powers is leading to a growing suspicion that its initials should really stand for World Take Over. In a series of rulings it has struck down measures to help the world's poor, protect the environment, and safeguard health in the interests of private—usually American—companies.
"The WTO seems to be on a crusade to increase private profit at the expense of all other considerations, including the well-being and quality of life of the mass of the world's people," says Ronnie Hall, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth International. "It seems to have a relentless drive to extend its power."
On November 16, two weeks before the conference, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13141—Environmental Review of Trade Agreements, which committed the United States to a policy of "assessment and consideration of the environmental impacts of trade agreements" and stated, "Trade agreements should contribute to the broader goal of sustainable development."
Activists staged a spoof of Seattle daily newspaper the Post-Intelligencer on Wednesday November 24, inserting thousands of hoax editions of a four-page front-page wrap-around into piles of newspapers awaiting distribution to hundreds of street boxes and retail outlets. The spoof front-page stories were "Boeing to move overseas" (to Indonesia) and "Clinton pledges help for poorest nations".Parvaz D "P-I executives not amused by protesters' parody" Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 25, 1999 The byline on the Boeing story attributed it to Joe Hill (a union organizer who had been executed by firing squad in Utah in 1915). On the same day, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development reported:
developing countries have remained steadfast in their demand that developed countries honour Uruguay Round commitments before moving forward full force with new trade negotiations. Specifically, developing countries are concerned over developed countries' compliance with agreements on market access for textiles, their use of antidumping measures against developing countries' exports, and over-implementation of the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs).No New Issues Without Redress Of Uruguay Round Imbalances ICTSD Bridges Weekly Seattle 99, Vol 3 No 46, November 24, 1999
N30 or the 'Battle'
On the morning of Tuesday, November 30, 1999, the DAN's plan was put into effect. Several hundred activists arrived in the deserted streets near the convention center and began to take control of key intersections. Over the next few hours, a number of marchers began to converge on the area from different directions. These included a student march from the north, a march of citizens of the developing world who marched in from the south and, beginning around 9:00, militant anarchists (in a formation known as a black bloc) marching down Pike Street from 6th Avenue, blockading the streets with newspaper boxes and smashing windows. Some demonstrators held rallies, others held teach-ins and at least one group staged an early-morning street party. Meanwhile, a number of protesters still controlled the intersections using lockdown formations. An AFL-CIO rally began at 10:00.
That morning, the King County Sheriff's Office and Seattle Police Department fired pepper spray, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades at protesters at several intersections in an attempt to reopen the blocked streets and allow as many WTO delegates as possible through the blockade.Seattle Police Department, After-Action Report, pp. 39–40Draft King Country Sheriff's Office Final Report, II.H.2.WTO Accountability Review Committee, Combined Timeline of Events During the WTO Ministerial, 1999, Tuesday, Nov. 30: 9:09 am & 10 am.A recording of the Seattle Police Department radio channel command-5 is also available, but has a gap from 0836 to 0840.Highleyman, Liz, Scenes from the Battle of Seattle.St. Clair, Jeffrey, Seattle Diary.Gillham, Patrick F., and Marx, Gary T., Complexity and Irony in Policing: The World Trade Organization in Seattle.de Armond, Paul, Netwar in the Emerald City: WTO Protest Strategy and Tactics, pp. 216–217. At 6th Avenue and Union Street, the crowd threw objects back at the police.
By late morning, the black bloc had swelled to 200 people and smashed dozens of shops and police cars. This seems to have set off a chain reaction of sorts, with previously nonviolent protesters throwing bottles at police and joining in the vandalism shortly before noon.
The police were eventually overwhelmed by the mass of protesters downtown, including many who had chained themselves together and were blocking intersections. Meanwhile, the late-morning labor-organized rally and march drew tens of thousands; though the intended march route had them turning back before they reached the convention center, some ignored the marshals and joined what had become a chaotic scene downtown.
At noon, the opening ceremony at the convention center was officially canceled. It took police much of the afternoon and evening to clear the streets. Seattle mayor Paul Schell declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew, and a 50-block "no-protest zone."
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