Up to 10 000 of the poorest Mexican farmers and trade unionists marched on the World Trade Organistion’s (WTO) opening meeting on Wednesday, demanding that small farmers be protected from international big business and that trade rules should not determine issues of food and health.
Police used tear gas to repel flag-burning demonstrators from a security fence, where more than 1 000 heavily armed police and army were waiting with riot shields.
American flags were set alight and hurled at the riot police along with other missiles. One man was seriously injured and 20m of the barrier was broken down by a mixture of militants and protesters.
”We come peacefully. This is a war of ideas, and not weapons,” said Juan, a Mexican peasant. The march, led by Mexicans from the Yucatan pensinsula near Cancun, and joined by groups from more than 30 countries, ”would have been 10 times the size if local people had been able to afford to come”, said a spokesperson for Via Campesino, an umbrella body representing millions of farmers worldwide.
Protesters were buoyed by messages of support from the clandestine but influential Zapatista group, which runs one-third of neighbouring Chiapas state. Messages from three of their leaders were broadcast on a pirate radio station set up for the conference.
Subcommandante Marcos, one of the Zapatista leaders, said that he hoped that the WTO’s ”train of globalisation” would be derailed in Cancun.
”This is a world war of the powerful who want to turn the planet into a private club. We are the immense majority. The globalisation of those above us is a global machine that feeds off blood.”
Subcommandantes Marcos, Esther and David urged people to reject the development models being offered by the WTO, to disobey governments, and make protest as global as financial capital.
The three speeches were considered significant because the Zapatistas led the international protests against the ”neo-liberal” policies of rich countries, and have considerable poilitical and intellectual stature around the world.
”They have not spoken for four years to an international audience. It will play very well with the grassroots, the students and intellectuals,” said commentator Luis Navarro. The WTO and the Mexican government declined to comment on the speeches.
On Wednesday, small-scale United States and European farmers joined the peasant farmers in demanding change.
”We have the same enemies as the farmers of Latin America,” said Dena Hoff of the US Family Farms Alliance, who farms in Montana and says she cannot make a living. ”Small farms are going out of business in a big way. Prices have gone down, corporate profits have soared.
”These people are my brothers and sisters,” she added.
Marcella Harris, a Windward Island banana farmer, said that WTO policies were threatening the survival of tens of thousands of people.
”We can no longer send our fruit to Europe on preferential terms. We are small islands, small farmers. Our rural communities are suffering badly.”
Via Campesino made seven demands to the WTO, including the banning of genetically modified foods, and an end to the patenting of life forms and the privatisation of water, forests or land. — Guardian Unlimited Â