WTO REPORT SUMMARY
Summary of report prepared by the National Lawyers Guild at http://www.students.washington.edu/uwnlg/
Several reports have been released on the Seattle WTO Ministerial. Most of them have been written by members of law enforcement or people involved in the planning of the event. Their tone has been unapologetic. They have not addressed the unprecedented level of force used by police. This force included the use of potentially lethal CS, OC and impact weapons. These weapons were used against bystanders, residents and thousands of demonstrators who took no part in the destruction of property. Many of these reports have called for an even greater use of force in future political demonstrations.
It is the theory of this report that the level of force employed during the WTO Ministerial must be examined. We say this because dismissing what occurred in Seattle will make such future uses of excessive force inevitable. To do so would be to damage, perhaps irreparably, the fabric of democracy and free speech that has maintained our society.
Because the events that occurred in Seattle did not occur in a vacuum, the analysis in this report includes an analysis of the WTO's policies and other factors that created the catastrophic militarized response by law enforcement.
This report first examines the underlying factors behind the WTO, and the dynamic it and organizations like it create. Next this report explores the way this dynamic was manifest in Seattle when an undemocratic process brought the WTO here. After this we examine the dynamics that occurred during the Ministerial itself, both on the streets of Seattle, and inside the Convention Center.
After this we explore the factors that led to this event unfolding in the fashion that it did. We explore some of the dynamics that are shaping the world economy. We also explore the dynamics that are causing a blurring of lines between police and military. We then explore how these dynamics influenced what took place in Seattle during the WTO Ministerial.
It is our hope that through honest, thorough investigation and analysis, we may prevent such disasters from reoccurring in the future.
The WTO is an Undemocratic Institution
A leading expert on the prevention of terrorism states that the number one cause of a general threat is a: "Unpopular, repressive or corrupt government."
By many standards, the WTO could be viewed as such an institution, and as such, would by definition, create the threat of civil unrest, merely by its proximity.
The WTO is an organization that favors corporations over nations. It has the power to hold secret tribunals judged by parties with vested interests. These tribunals have the power to levy huge penalties against nations who try to set standards on product safety, health standards, or working conditions. Examples of WTO judgements include successful challenges to the U.S. Clean Air Act, bans on asbestos, guarantees of 30 days shelf life for meat. In a world dominated by the WTO, there may be no limits on pollution, no limits on unsafe products, only an open and "free market" for the largest of the corporations. The only protection the WTO allows is Article XX, which has never been successfully used in a challenge once.
During the Ministerial many of the Delegates were unable to participate in many of the "Green Room" sessions that ultimately shaped the agenda. At the same time, representatives of Boeing and Microsoft, to name two, were able to attend these same meetings for a $250,000 donation.
It was because of policies such as these that the WTO was ultimately rejected by two thirds of the delegates at the Seattle Ministerial. As one remarked on December 3: "This system is no longer about rules, it's about who has the money to influence trade policy and it's absolutely outrageous."
Institutions such as the WTO Promote their Interests by Undemocratic Means
Many of the businesses that most promote the WTO and its allied institutions rely on undemocratic practices to promote their business interest. In recent years these policies have included not only monopolistic business practices, but also outright interference with local governments. Frequently, to promote the interests of business, a militaristic type of government is either promoted, or even created. The effects these governments and their policies have on the citizenry of these nations are disastrous. Farms and forests are ruined and denuded. Low cost toxic waste dumps are created near population centers to service skyrocketing debts. Many in the native population go homeless and hungry. Dissenters and sometimes even random members of the population are jailed, sometimes tortured and killed. In the end the country may become ruined and toxic, populated by a citizenry that is little better than slaves.
The WTO Was Brought to Seattle in an Undemocratic Manner
For years before the WTO came to Seattle, the people of Seattle had expressed their dissatisfaction with its policies. They had protested against NAFTA and the MAI. They had lobbied their elected officials and they had gotten resolutions passed against some of these policies by their local government. For example King County had been declared an MAI free zone before the Seattle was even considered as the site for the Ministerial.
To all available evidence, the WTO was brought to Seattle not only without the knowledge of most of Seattle's citizens but without the knowledge or consent of the majority of Seattle's elected officials. This was a lack of transparency that mirrored the process of the WTO itself. This inability by certain members of local government to listen to their non-corporate constituents only exacerbated an inflammatory situation.
The Vast Majority of those there to Demonstrate Against the WTO were Well Informed and Engaged in Lawful Activities
While the image of the WTO demonstrations that has drawn the most attention in some circles is that of windows breaking, the actual acts according to most witnesses, were perpetrated by a dozen or so individuals. This number can be compared to the estimated 50,000 demonstrators who took part in the lawful march on November 30, where no known instances of misconduct of any kind took place.
Other events around the WTO held by demonstrators included teach-ins by learned authorities including Ralph Nader and Vandana Shiva, as well as rank and file members of the unions effected by WTO's policies. The discussed how the WTO was opening the door to goods made under barbaric conditions, including child labor, and how the WTO was promoting agribusiness at the expense of agriculture.
The Response That Took Place in Seattle During the WTO Ministerial was Not that of a Healthy Democracy
Speaking before the Seattle City Council in mid-October, Assistant Police Chief Ed Joiner declared that downtown Seattle would be the safest place in Washington on November 30. Mayor Paul Schell invited citizens downtown to shop.
On the morning of November 30, 1999, there were no broken windows, no looted stores. The police began to use CS gas, CN gas, OC, rubber bullets and wooden dowels hours before any of this had occurred. The police used these weapons on thousands of individuals including children, the elderly, asthmatics, people with AIDs, bystanders and shoppers who'd been invited into the area by the Mayor and the Assistant Chief of Police. From many indications, including the afteraction report of one law enforcement agency, this had always been their plan.
The police also entered the most densely populated area of Seattle on two occasions. According to many witnesses, residents, diners, and shoppers were all indiscriminately attacked. They were attacked in their homes, in their front yards, as they dined at restaurants and as they left grocery stores.
An arbitrary, ill-defined, constantly shifting zone was set up, where no demonstrations were allowed. Six hundred people were arrested on December 1st, 1999, some before the zone had even been ratified. There is no property damage reported on this day, nor any evidence linking those people arrested to the windows broken on November 30. Many of these people were arrested only after they'd been gassed, pepper sprayed and shot at. Law enforcement fills out paperwork processing these hundreds of people arrested in four locations, under the name of a woman from Bremerton who was arrested in the mid-afternoon.
According to many witnesses, the ill treatment continued into the jails. Many state that they were subjected to prolonged pain, abrupt temperature changes and conditions that resemble torture.
At least one person seems to have died as a result of the use of gas during WTO. The implications for continued use of the substances used during the WTO Ministerial in this context are that persons such as those with AIDs, Asthma, or other conditions that may put them at risk, can no longer participate in the political process.
The response by law enforcement was at best a gross overreaction. If it is allowed to remain unexamined nd unchallenged it will form a precedent and worse will follow.
The WTO Ministerial Took Place Against the Backdrop of a Police Force that is being Blended with the Military, and is Becoming Indistinguishable from the Military
As the military has been used more for a "policing" function, law enforcement has become increasingly militarized. Presently there is a dangerous blending of military and police. It has been noted by sources as diverse as, and not limited to, the European Union, the Libertarian Cato Institute, and Earth Island Journal.
Most law enforcement agencies now have dedicated militarized units. Their weaponry is often indistinguishable from their military counterparts. These units frequently train with elite military units including Delta Force and the Navy Seals and are often supervised by these same military units. There are also a growing number of pretexts that allow these forces to be used against the domestic population. Moreover as these units have become more pervasive, their ethic has come to influence, in some ways dominate, the training and behavior of police officers.
With this militarization has come a change in the focus of police officers. The objectives of law enforcement personnel, who are trained to protect a population, and protect life, are incongruous with the objectives and training of soldiers who are actively desensitized so that they can take life. It appears from available evidence that the soldiers' training stressing desensitization is winning out. The result is that law enforcement is no longer there to protect the citizens as much as they are there to control them. As they are hired in greater numbers, given increased armaments and less training, they create a danger to themselves and to their communities. Often, the mere presence of police as a paramilitary occupying force serves to create dissent - this has been documented by studies in Ireland, and seems to have happened in Capitol Hill.
Additionally, the increased powers these forces are granted, and sometimes take, are dangerous to any democratic form of government. The European Union pondered what was the factor that determined whether tools available for law enforcement were used for democratic means or to instead to crush dissent. They wrote in their report, "the overriding factor is the extent to which development and deployment is subject to democratic control." (An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control, EU January 6, 1998, p. 6)
Conclusion: Seattle's Obligation after WTO
In the aftermath of the WTO Ministerial, Seattle has an obligation to pursue the truth of what led up to and created the disastrous response by law enforcement. Only by doing so can we prevent the trends that occurred from worsening. If we continue to allow the unbridled cross pollination of police and military to continue unexamined, and unchallenged, and remove these agencies from examination by the citizens both police and the military serve, we place our democratic process and our rights as free citizens at risk.
Recommendations
Issue Raised: What was the chain of command that was in place for law enforcement personnel during the WTO Ministerial? Were there any members of the military involved, especially on a command decision level as implied by reports from Seattle Weekly and CNN?
Analysis: The blurring of lines between military and law enforcement is a slippery slope. The use of these forces in combination, as appears to have occurred in Seattle, makes this slope slipperier. The only possible method of retrieval, once the slide down this slope has begun, is the complete openness and democratization of all levels of the process of decision making and deployment. If simple questions will not be answered under such pretexts as "National Security" then the system will be abused, and the level of abuses will accelerate.
Recommendation: The City of Seattle should explore as far as possible the role all federal law enforcement and military agencies had in the decision making process, both in terms of the planning and during the actual event. Any agency's refusal to cooperate in this investigation should be documented as part of the City's report, and legal methods of obtaining this information should be thoroughly investigated.
Issue Raised: What were the effects of the various chemical weapons employed including CS, CN and OC?
Analysis: Many of the weapons employed on the streets of Seattle during the Ministerial are still in the experimental stages. Others are weapons of war with only the most minor of adjustments made in their capacities. Many of these weapons have been banned in war, and banned by other governments. The effects of these weapons on people, both short term and long term, are not fully known. It is known that some of the propellants are carcinogenic and others mutagenic.
In the past, government agencies have lost much public faith by failing to disclose the effects of substances that both citizens and members of the armed forces were exposed to. Well known scandals include Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome and the exposure of veterans and workers to Nuclear Radiation. In the final analysis, attempts by government agencies to deny the injuries created by all of these resulted in a loss of credibility that could easily have been avoided.
In Seattle there are many of the thousands of people exposed to these substances who suffered short term effects that are easily documented. These people included not only demonstrators, but also residents and even members of law enforcement.
Recommendation: The City of Seattle needs to set up a long term study of the effects that people exposed to these substances, including law enforcement, are experiencing. The results of this study should be made accessible to all interested members of the public, and should be actively distributed to other agencies considering the use of these substances and the manufacturers of these substances.
In addition active treatment options should be made available to those suffering from effects of these substances.
Issue: Is the use of less-lethal technologies for purposes of crowd control legitimate?
Analysis Though many SPD documents and training materials refer to these weapons as "non-lethal" or "less than lethal" the correct term, and the one employed by their manufacturer is "less lethal." This distinction is significant. Every time these weapons are deployed, there is a potential for the use of lethal force, no different than if a traditional firearm were deployed.
The damage caused by these weapons seems to have been exacerbated by their improper use. The manufacturers of less lethal technologies have developed fairly rigorous protocols and procedures to reduce, though not entirely eliminate, the possibility that use of their products will prove lethal. Studies in other areas where they have been deployed show that these protocols are frequently ignored. All available evidence including photographic evidence, statements from witnesses and the physical injuries themselves indicates that this is what happened in Seattle.
There are several reasons why this ignoring of the safety procedures seem to occur. One reason for this seems to be a lack of proper training. From all available evidence, including the statements of officers, the police were given little training in the proper use of these weapons, and even, according to their own reports, appear to have injured themselves through their improper use.
Another factor may be the desensitization. Since police are trained in a military style to shoot at a target that closely resembles a human being, this is often what becomes their reflex. Another part of this desensitization process is distancing - the police are to all available evidence, not being informed of how potentially lethal these weapons are. For example, the Seattle Police Department ranks the use of much of these technologies slightly above verbal commands in their "use of force continuum." The products' manufacturers place the use of these products in the same level as firearms.
Perhaps the most damning argument against the use of these weapons is that the very nature of crowd control situations makes their ideal deployment for purposes of "non-lethal" crowd control impractical. Simply put, with hundreds, or even a few dozen people moving around in a close are, it is impossible to factor in the distance that each of these people is at, so that each shot may be fired at a "safe" distance and trajectory. It was based on this argument that many nations including the entire European Parliament, outlawed the use of plastic bullets within the European Union in 1982.
Recommendations: At a minimum, police should be properly instructed that every time they are deploying one of these weapons, it is an act with the same potential consequences as the decision to deploy a firearm.
Consequently, use of any of these weapons should be limited exclusively to those circumstances when it is legitimate to use a firearm. Using these weapons to incapacitate an individual who poses an immediate threat of loss of life, may in some circumstances, be legitimate if the only other choice is a firearm. Using these weapons to break up any assembly, even if unlawful, should be recognized as an improper use of force and should be banned for all such purposes, unless there is an impending threat of loss of life, that cannot otherwise be avoided.
Issue: Are there legitimate reasons for the blurring of the distinctions between police and the military?
Analysis: Almost routinely now, police are given weaponry and training that is increasingly similar to that of military units. Special police units such as SWAT and SERT teams train with Special Forces military units, and often receive supervision from these units. The size training and abilities of the National Guard have been expanded so that it is functionally equivalent to a military unit that can function against the domestic population.
The United States has a protection against the use of federal troops for civilian law enforcement. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 makes it a crime to do so. The intent behind this is that the military is there to deal with foreign enemies, usually with a lethal response. Police, by contrast are members of the community and there above all to protect life. The two are hence incompatible.
Upon closer analysis, most of the reasons commonly given for increasing the armament of the police and combining their actions with the military quickly collapse. For example, FBI statistics show that four times as many law enforcement officers are killed with their own gun than with anything resembling a military weapon. During the WTO and other recent demonstrations, stories of demonstrators with explosives turned out to be just that. Property destruction was done by a few dozen people who the police on the streets could easily have contained.
What does seem to be driving this tendency to the militarization of the police and the thinning of lines between the roles of police and military are economic and political reasons. Seattle is at a point where the world is watching how we respond. Realistically, the threat of another event on the scale of the WTO Ministerial is minimal, so hypothetical scenarios about what could have worked better should not be a major factor in terms of charting a future direction for the SPD. Moreover, if Seattle plays into the escalating fears of political protest, or even typical police duties being example of "asymmetric warfare" as some theorist claim, we will set the stage to turn Seattle, and much of the nation into an armed camp.
Recommendations: The present blurring of the lines between military and police is a question of going too far and a violation of Posse Comitatus, the citizens' protection against the military.
A hard look should be taken at the actual function of the special teams we have created for our police. The growth of these units should be frozen. Assessments should be done of these units actual performance and effectiveness. Consideration should be given as to whether these units can be reduced or even disbanded.
Analysis should also be done of the influence the training these special units receive has on the training of other officers. Are they for example, being given less emphasis on the preservation of life and more on the taking of it? Such factors should be analyzed and corrected.
Issue: What are the obligations of an entity such as the City of Seattle during events such as the WTO Ministerial?
Analysis: The principle obligation of any lawfully elected body is to uphold the law.
Foremost among these laws is the United States Constitution. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly under the First Amendment, and freedom from unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Months before the WTO Ministerial, National Lawyers Guild Seattle Chapter members Fred Diamondstone and Paul Richmond met with Captain Linda Pierce, who was a representative of the Legal Unit and Captain Jim Pugel who was responsible for the operation of downtown, and reminded them of the law. Cases cited by the NLG members included Collins v. Jordan, and Bray. These cases hold that entities such as the City of Seattle have an obligation to maintain channels for protest to be heard by the intended audience. The representatives of the city were reminded of this orally. A letter that reiterated these points to the city followed this.
It is clear that to deal with the potential volatility of the WTO, procedures that violated these rights were contemplated before the institution's arrival. Plans being considered significantly before the event took place include keeping the National Guard on standby, having enough CS gas on hand for a day of heavy use, and declaring large parts of downtown off access.
With the contemplation of these plans, and their enactment, the City of Seattle violated its obligations both to the Constitution and to its citizens.
Recommendations
In the future, events that raise any considerations of public safety, and/or the abrogation of Constitutional Rights must be dealt with openly and democratically, with adequate participation from the public.
It is unclear whether those officials responsible for bringing the WTO to Seattle knew of its volatility when they first issued the invitation, or if this was something that became clearer as they got closer to the event.
In either event, once factors that threatened the safety, the lives and the Constitutional rights of many of Seattle's citizens became an integral part of the planning process just so the event could continue, the elected officials of Seattle had an obligation. That obligation was not to the event, but to their constituents, the citizens of Seattle, and to the Constitution itself.
There have been numerous municipalities that have dealt with large acts of civil disobedience and have upheld their obligations under the law. For example, in 1988, the tiny town of Mercury Nevada was able to arrest over 1,200 people in a single day without violating the rights of any of those arrested.
If there were still circumstances that prevented the City of Seattle from upholding its basic duties, it should have been readily apparent that having the WTO Ministerial in Seattle was simply not worth the risk. The City should have done as Mayor Schell later did with the Millennial New Years Eve party and simply ended the event before it began.
To violate the U.S. Constitution and to use potentially lethal force against citizens who are not themselves threatening such force, is a violation of the most basic laws enabling us to maintain a free society.