for comparison, here is the story running on cnn.com
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/australasia/09/13/australia.riots.ap/index.html
The tone is quite different, describing the "ragtag" demonstrators
whose numbers "briefly swelled" to 8000. The suggestion is that by
the end of the conference the demonstrations had clearly "failed."
This is my favorite part:
"""
Organizer Stephen Jolly claimed the protest had been a success, despite
the violence and the failure of the group to stop delegates from entering
the conference.
"""
-Lyn
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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Two days of protests at the Asia-Pacific
Economic Summit wound down Wednesday, as helmeted police carrying
batons and shields outnumbered demonstrators objecting to the
globalization of the world's economy.
Demonstrator numbers, which had climbed as high as 8,000 at one point
this week, dwindled after it became clear that they were unable to
stop most delegates from entering the conference.
On Monday, the conference's first day, the protesters had managed to
stop about 200 of the nearly 900 delegates from entering Melbourne's
Crown Casino. Police took stronger action early Tuesday, charging with
batons waving through blockades to allow buses carrying delegates into
the complex.
By Wednesday, the meeting's last day, police in riot gear easily
cleared a path through the blockade and formed a three-deep
cordon. There were some minor scuffles, but no repeat of violent
scenes from the first two days of the conference.
In those skirmishes, at least 25 police and 30 protesters suffered
various injuries, including cuts, bruises and broken bones, police
said.
A dozen protesters were arrested over the three days and charged with
offenses from assaulting and hindering police to criminal damage.
Inside the summit, delegates including Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill
Gates discussed the recovery of Asia from its debilitating economic
crises. Outside was a ragtag army of about 3,000 protesters, a group
that briefly swelled Tuesday with the addition of about 5,000 labor
unionists. The protesters have condemned corporations, saying they
exploit workers in developing nations and have poor environmental
standards.
The conference, hosted by the privately funded, Switzerland-based
World Economic Forum, was due to wrap up later Wednesday.
The protests formally ended with thousands of demonstrators marching
through downtown Melbourne, carrying signs and shouting
anti-globalization slogans. Hundreds of police watched the march,
which blocked traffic downtown but was peaceful -- even as it passed
several McDonald's restaurants. The fast-food chain has been targeted
by anti-globalization protests overseas.
"We are hoping to ... take our message into the city and to emphasize
that we are here standing up for the majority of the world's people while
the people in the WEF represent the minority," Jackie Lynch said.
Organizer Stephen Jolly claimed the protest had been a success, despite
the violence and the failure of the group to stop delegates from entering
the conference.
"Most importantly we've turned the WEF meeting here in Melbourne
over the last three days into a sideshow," Jolly said. "It's been what's
happening outside the forum that's been on everybody's agenda."
Busloads of protesters were planning to head to Sydney to lend support
to Aboriginal protests at the Olympic Games. Aboriginal activists say
they will stage demonstrations to highlight their plight as the most
disadvantaged section of Australian society.
>>>>> "Tony" == Tony Abdo <[log in to unmask]> writes:
Tony> S11 BLOCKADE A HUGE SUCCESS WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM PARTIALLY
Tony> SHUT DOWN A NEW GENERATION OF STRUGGLE By John Tully
Tony> MELBOURNE: The three-day blockade of the Asia-Pacific wing
Tony> of the World Economic Forum (WEF) here on September 11, 12
Tony> and 13 has been a stunning success. The blockade was
Tony> organised under the general slogans of "From Seattle to
Tony> Melbourne, fight corporate greed!" and "Stand up for global
Tony> justice and the environment!" The S11 Alliance, the umbrella
Tony> organisation behind the protest, largely kept its promise to
Tony> "Shut down the World Economic Forum".
Tony> As one tired, but elated, picket said in a spirit of
Tony> friendly internationalist rivalry: "Hey, Seattle!
Tony> Melbourne's right up there with you!"
Tony> It rained, on and off, throughout the three days, sometimes
Tony> torrentially, and a cold wind blew off Port Phillip Bay, but
Tony> neither that, nor the brutality of 2000 police and a small
Tony> army of security guards, could dampen the enthusiasm of the
Tony> tens of thousands of protestors. The Forum was effectively
Tony> blocked off for the duration, and its gatherings sparsely
Tony> attended. Small wonder that Australia's right-wing Prime
Tony> Minister, John Howard, looked more than usually petulant,
Tony> and Microsoft's Bill Gates looked glum. For their part, the
Tony> protestors enjoyed a huge range of bands, performers, giant
Tony> puppets and other entertainment that compensated to some
Tony> degree for the weather and police violence.
Tony> The Forum was held, most appropriately, in the ugly
Tony> skyscraper tower of the Crown Casino on the Yarra bank: an
Tony> apt symbol of the corporate cowboys and bribed intellectuals
Tony> who make up the WEF.
Tony> Crown's owners include Australia's richest man, Kerry
Tony> Packer, who recently lost US$34 million in a single weekend
Tony> at Las Vegas. Packer will be even further out of pocket
Tony> after S11. Crown was forced to suspend operations for the
Tony> duration of the conference, and admits to having lost $10
Tony> million in takings. But more than Crown's profits have taken
Tony> a hammering. Rumour has it that the WEF organisers are so
Tony> demoralised that they are considering holding future events
Tony> by teleconference rather than brave the wrath of a new
Tony> generation of anti-capitalist campaigners.
Tony> The success of the S11 blockade shows that the world-wide
Tony> upsurge of revulsion against capitalist globalisation that
Tony> began last year at Seattle is set to continue. Tens of
Tony> thousands of demonstrators sealed off the conference and
Tony> effectively disrupted its proceedings. All the entrances to
Tony> the conference venue were blocked by pickets. Ironically, a
Tony> four-metre high chain mesh fence erected by the police to
Tony> keep out protestors also served to keep out WEF guests and
Tony> personnel, and its metre-high concrete base was convenient
Tony> for the spray painted slogans of the demonstrators. A number
Tony> of high-ranking conservative political figures tried to run
Tony> the gauntlet but turned back.
Tony> The premier of West Australia, Charles Court, a virulent
Tony> opponent of Aboriginal land rights, was trapped for an hour
Tony> in his car by a group of Aborigines. "This is the way you've
Tony> had us for 200 years," jeered one burly Aborigine at the
Tony> clearly discomfited politician. "Now you know how it feels."
Tony> The S11 blockade culminated in a "victory march" around the
Tony> central business district, with around 15,000 protesters in
Tony> a jubilant mood. The blockaders had maintained the pickets
Tony> around the clock for more than three days, despite massive
Tony> police brutality and uncertain weather.
Tony> The march was a gigantic anti-capitalist carnival, with
Tony> drums, whistles and ear-splitting rap music. However, the
Tony> shouts of "shame!" from thousands of throats whenever the
Tony> police were spotted underlined the serious purpose of the
Tony> marchers and their determination not to be intimidated
Tony> A feature of the march was a gigantic banner inscribed with
Tony> messages of solidarity from individuals and groups
Tony> (including supporters of the Fourth International) who took
Tony> part in the blockade. The banner will go to Prague for the
Tony> S26 protests against the World Trade Organisation there: a
Tony> symbol of the anti-capitalist internationalism that has
Tony> taken root around the world since Seattle.
Tony> The march wound through the city streets past the offices
Tony> and shops of such transnational icons as Nike (closed for
Tony> the duration of S11), McDonalds, the banks, and the
Tony> Melbourne Stock Exchange; all heavily guarded by riot
Tony> police. True to his form as an unmitigated liar, deputy
Tony> police commissioner Neil O'Loughlin insisted that the
Tony> marchers would "ransack" the city. Like all of his other
Tony> ridiculous allegations, it proved baseless.
Tony> The blockade was organised by a loose coalition of forces,
Tony> including socialists, anarchists, trade unionists,
Tony> environmentalists, indigenous people, church groups and
Tony> campaigners against Third World debt. The umbrella group,
Tony> the S11 Alliance, was responsible for the coordination of
Tony> events, but members of a bewildering number of "affinity
Tony> groups" essentially did their own organising and came
Tony> together with others on the days of the protest. One of the
Tony> most inspiring aspects of the whole struggle was the
Tony> relative youth of many of the blockaders.
Tony> Many thousand high school students attended some or all of
Tony> the protests, giving fresh hope to older generations of
Tony> activists that the struggle for a better world will
Tony> continue. Although reactionary media and political figures
Tony> attacked S11 for "involving children", these young people
Tony> refused to be patronised and made it clear that they knew
Tony> what they were fighting for.
Tony> Government and media hypocrisy was shown when many of these
Tony> young people were bashed by the police – we hear no cries
Tony> of "child abuse" from moralising newspaper editors and
Tony> shyster politicians. Dozens were hospitalised after
Tony> unprovoked attacks by the notorious "Swat Squad", the
Tony> paramilitary tactical response unit. The police rode their
Tony> horses into crowds, savagely batoned passive demonstrators,
Tony> and even stamped on heads in a rampage of violence. In one
Tony> of the worst instances, the police bashed pickets early in
Tony> the morning when other gates were unattended. Several
Tony> hundred police suddenly erupted through the gates, catching
Tony> a much smaller number of pickets by surprise from the rear,
Tony> and flailing indiscriminately with their fists, boots and
Tony> three-foot-long batons. All in all, several hundred
Tony> demonstrators were injured, compared with a handful of
Tony> police. The attack followed demands by WEF officials the day
Tony> before that the police get tough with the pickets. In
Tony> another incident, the! police turned fire hoses on
Tony> demonstrators around 3am, with temperatures around 4 degrees
Tony> Celsius, presumably in order to amuse themselves, as the
Tony> pickets were sitting down with their backs to the police.
Tony> There were also reports that police used capsicum gas spray
Tony> and many police officers removed their identification badges
Tony> before assaulting demonstrators. In fact, the police were
Tony> sometimes so hyped up that they assaulted journalists and
Tony> damaged their cameras. There is also evidence of
Tony> plainclothes police acting as provocateurs. The writer's
Tony> son, a 15-year-old high school student witnessed the arrival
Tony> of a vanload of provocateurs at one picket. These
Tony> individuals threw tin cans and other objects at security
Tony> guards before being warned off by S11 organisers, luckily
Tony> before the police could arrive to "restore order".
Tony> It is to their credit that despite police violence, the
Tony> discipline of the protestors held. S11 had promised that the
Tony> protest would be non-violent, and the promise was
Tony> kept. Pickets would link arms or sit down in front of the
Tony> gates to prevent the so-called "delegates" from entering
Tony> Crown Casino, but they would not fight back.
Tony> Injured pickets were thus particularly incensed by the
Tony> attitude of the Victorian state premier, Steve Bracks, who
Tony> praised police for their conduct whilst condemning the
Tony> alleged violence of the pickets. Bracks is a member of the
Tony> Australian Labor Party, but his claims to have any
Tony> meaningful links with organised labour are extremely
Tony> tenuous. He attended the WEF conference at Davos in
Tony> Switzerland early this year, and flew back to break a strike
Tony> of electricity workers. He brought enormous pressure to bear
Tony> on the leadership of the trade unions to boycott the S11
Tony> blockade, but was only partially successful. One of the
Tony> highlights of the three days was a series of ! marches on
Tony> the Casino by thousands of construction and metal workers.
Tony> Predictably, the bourgeois media attempted to whip up
Tony> hysteria in the weeks leading up to S11. They told and
Tony> retold the big lie that demonstrators had been responsible
Tony> for the violence last year's demonstrations against the
Tony> World Trade Organisation in Seattle. The implication was
Tony> that the same would happen in Melbourne. Rupert Murdoch's
Tony> local rag, the Herald-Sun, carried screaming headlines just
Tony> prior to S11, announcing: "POLICE: WE'RE READY FOR S11
Tony> VIOLENCE". Several hundred S11 supporters retaliated by
Tony> briefly occupying the newspaper offices. The media also
Tony> played up government threats to re-open old asylums and
Tony> dickensian police cells to ensure that there was sufficient
Tony> space to house arrested demonstrators.
Tony> Yet, for all of this hysterical hype, the demonstrators
Tony> remained uncooperatively non-violent and the police were
Tony> able to arrest only 12 people. The non-violent tactics were
Tony> very successful, however. Hundreds of the so-called
Tony> "delegates" were unable to get into the conference. Many
Tony> others, who had arrived earlier, were unable to leave the
Tony> premises except by helicopter and attendance at meetings was
Tony> well-down, with TV coverage showing dispirited clumps of
Tony> suits in echoing halls.
Tony> One news clip showed dejected groups of well-heeled
Tony> individuals trudging through a waterlogged field to their
Tony> limousines after being evacuated from the Crown Tower by
Tony> helicopter. It must have rankled for these rich and powerful
Tony> individuals to have to creep about under massive police
Tony> protection, bleating about being "held to ransom by
Tony> unrepresentative minorities".
Tony> In fact, it is organisations such as the WEF which are the
Tony> real minorities, and which act against the interests of the
Tony> overwhelming majority of people on the planet. Although
Tony> Forum bigwig Claude Smadja claimed that the WEF has no real
Tony> power, it is in fact it is an immensely powerful rich man's
Tony> club. The WEF is made up of representatives of the richest
Tony> and most powerful groups in the world. Its members include
Tony> the CEOs of the top 1000 transnational corporations, besides
Tony> influential political leaders, tame academics and gurus of
Tony> neoliberalism, along with representatives of the World Bank,
Tony> the World Trade Organisation, the Asian Development Bank,
Tony> and the IMF. It was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab as the
Tony> European Management Forum, but was renamed in 1987 "to
Tony> reflect its increasingly global outlook", according to WEF
Tony> literature. The WEF's members are divided into a number of
Tony> areas: media, mining, textiles, pulp and paper, and so
Tony> on. They include corporations such as Exxon, Chase M!
Tony> anhattan Corp, De Beers Mining, Rio Tinto, Toyota, Western
Tony> Mining Corporation, Turner International, Royal Dutch Shell,
Tony> Microsoft, McDonalds, Monsanto, Boeing and Nike. Readers
Tony> will be aware of the anti-social, even criminal activities
Tony> of many of these corporations.
Tony> The WEF meets annually at the Swiss alpine resort town of
Tony> Davos. There, amidst the kind of luxury that would seem like
Tony> science fiction to the huge mass of the dispossessed and the
Tony> hungry of the world, the WEF makes decisions which affect
Tony> every citizen of the planet: and without being elected by,
Tony> or accountable to, anyone save the shareholders, the
Tony> corporations and the mega-rich. Contrary to the disingenuous
Tony> claims of Claude Smadja, the WEF admits that its annual
Tony> Davos meeting is "now considered the global summit which
Tony> defines the political, economic and business agenda for the
Tony> year." WEF literature also admits that the organisation
Tony> spurred the launch of the Uruguay Round which led to the
Tony> replacement of GATT by the World Trade Organisation in
Tony> 1995. It is also unquestionable that the WEF is instrumental
Tony> in setting the agenda of the WTO Millennium Round. This
Tony> latter round of talks aims to renegotiate the General
Tony> Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) "with a view to
Tony> achieving a p! rogressively higher level of liberalisation"
Tony> of the burgeoning service sector. The WEF's agenda, as the
Tony> S11 Alliance has pointed out, is: "massive global poverty;
Tony> ever-increasing inequalities between rich and poor; attacks
Tony> on workers' wages, conditions, occupational health and
Tony> safety standards; and widespread environmental and human
Tony> rights abuses." It is an agenda of unchecked corporate power
Tony> that quite literally means death for the poorest people on
Tony> the planet. It means the plundering of the assets of whole
Tony> peoples in the name of privatisation and deregulation. It
Tony> means a winding back of human progress in education and
Tony> health care for billions of people.
Tony> Far from capitalist globalisation being a "rising tide that
Tony> will lift all boats", it will sink those of the poor and
Tony> fill those of the rich with more booty than the pirate and
Tony> slave ships of old. Yet, as the protests in Seattle, Davos,
Tony> Washington DC, and now Melbourne show, they face stiffening
Tony> resistance from workers, students, farmers,
Tony> environmentalists and many others. This movement is broad,
Tony> pluralist, democratic, anti-capitalist and internationalist
Tony> in inspiration. It will prove wrong those bourgeois
Tony> ideologues such as Francis Fukuyama who proclaimed
Tony> free-market capitalism as "the end of history". The new
Tony> generation coming into struggle will not settle for such
Tony> hollow clichés, but will fight for a better world.
Tony> Margaret Thatcher be warned: there is an alternative!
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