Two 'Battle of Seattle' veterans speak about WTO protest
Published Jan. 25, 2000
Five MU students and 12 Columbia residents were sleepless in Seattle when riot police began firing rubber bullets and tear gas at them.
MU junior Bryan Maness and his brother Brent, a sophomore, were among those five who spent their days and nights on the streets of downtown Seattle chanting, "This is what democracy looks like, this is what democracy feels like."
This past Thursday, Bryan and Brent Maness talked about their experience during an informational session on the World Trade Organization in Fisher Auditorium in Gannett Hall.
They also explained local causes and spoke about globalization and the WTO protests.
Among the other speakers were professor John Ikerd, co-coordinator of the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Program at MU, who spoke about the economic reasoning behind free trade based on comparative advantage. Amy Damashek, a Mid-Missouri Peaceworks board member, also spoke on these issues.
"The WTO symbolizes a trend towards an economical globalization which works to increase corporate profits, while simultaneously undermining democracy worldwide," Damashek said.
On Nov. 30, 1999, an estimated 80,000 demonstrators converged on the Convention Center in Seattle, where the World Trade Organization was convening its "Millennium Round" trade summit.
The demonstrators' goal was to shut down the WTO using nonviolent tactics of civil disobedience. Of the 3,000 WTO delegates scheduled to attend, only 200 entered.
"It was very empowering," Bryan Maness said. "We completely shut down the WTO and stopped their delegates from entering, which was a major victory."
According to the WTO Web site, the organization is "the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations ... its main function is to ensure that dealing with the global rules of trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible."
Protesters, however, see the organization differently.
"We want to let America know, and our government know that Americans do not support the entry into an organization that jeopardizes our environment and our workers' rights," Bryan Maness said.
Locally, Campus Peaceworks and People Over Profits work to promote an ecologically sound world and violence-free community, in which equality and justice flourish.
Two free films about globalization and the WTO protests, "Global Village or Global Pillage," and "Showdown in Seattle," will be shown at 7 p.m., Feb. 2 in Room 110 of Lee Hills Hall.
Those events will be sponsored by Mid-Missouri Peaceworks and Campus Peaceworks. For more information, call 875-0593.