Volume 2, No. 10, October 2001

The ideologues and masters of capitalism are beginning to feel the blow of mass struggles of the people against capitalist globalisation after they proclaimed that "communism is dead" "and capitalism is forever." This blow to capitalist globalisation is not only coming in the oppressed countries of the periphery but also in the citadels of capital. The collapse of the Berlin Wall was hailed as the collapse of "communism" and the final victory of capitalism and a new era of peace, progress and prosperity was promised to humanity to wean it away from the ideology of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. What fell in Berlin was not socialism and the new "era", which was declared to be setting in, was not of "progress peace and prosperity". What the world got instead was a new powerful spate of the already going imperialist globalisation of the world, with the forces of capitalism running roughshod not only in the oppressed countries but also in the advanced ones. The idea of a welfare State was thrown into the dustbin, hard won economic and trade union rights of the workers and the middle classes were almost snatched away, all economic rules and regulations of most of the countries of the world were rewritten under the WTO regime, and free flow of capital and goods was ensured breaking all national barriers and restrictions. A system based on unprecedented plunder and exploitation coupled with worldwide political pressures and coercion over domestic governments to abide by the new international (imperialist) laws and regulations is being created. We see organised and heightened interventions, political as well as military, in the oppressed countries of the world.

This New World Order, a world organised according to the unsatiable lust and needs of world capitalism could not have established peace and we saw it being ripped apart by the imperialists themselves. The imperialists attacked and intervened, overtly, and also covertly, in the weak and poor countries in the Persian Gulf, in the Balkans, in Africa, in Central Asia and in Central America, or tried to bring ‘peace’ to the regions where it saw a threat to their ‘peaceful’ imperialist exploitation. For the imperialists peace means unrestrained and unrestricted rights for the penetration of capital and market and they want that this right of theirs be accepted without any opposition and resistance. But this was not to be. Whereas most of the governments of the world yielded, some willingly and some reluctantly under the threat of international isolation and sanctions, to imperialist pressures, more and more people throughout the world have refused to accept this new system. They have opposed it and are increasingly coming on to the street to lodge their protests through various forms of struggles.

These struggles, in essence, are anti-capitalism though not for communism. Yet they are against the present system and the people participating in these want a change for the better. Right from the time of discussions over the Dunkel Proposals various sections of the people have been debating over the would be ill-effects of these proposals but first the salvos against the emerging system were fired when the World Trade Organisation came into existence in 1994. A wave of seminars, conventions and educational classes engulfed almost all the continents of the globe over the WTO and the people named it as a World Thieves Organisation. As people of all continents and countries started to be more or less affected by this new world regime they felt a need to build a globalised opposition to the imperialist globalisation of the world. The peasants were the first to oppose the WTO as it threatened them, because of the effect it was going to have on a vast majority of them. The WTO gave multinational food and agricultural corporations unbridled powers over patenting the seeds and seed technology and access to the world market. The next victims were to be the workers and other employees of the private and State sectors as their trade union rights were greatly curbed. The establishments they were working in started going under the hammer to be taken over by the multinationals thus threatening their jobs. Then came the turn of environmentalists to be jolted, as the new market mantra was going to further disrupt the already much destroyed eco-system of the planet. Thus, the uncontrollable quest for super-profits has been the only thing which the people have come to understand about the new order.

The WTO regime came into existence by promising that it will enhance the job market worldwide. Many Governments signed the WTO agreement by repeating the same promise to their people. As a case, the government of Philippines promised the creation of half a million jobs. But instead, selling of the concerns yielded huge lay-offs sending hundreds of thousands onto the streets. South Korea went for massive cuts in the already shrinking job market expelling thousands everyday out of the work places. In India the huge public sector adopted the policy of golden hand shake and step by step sell-off of various sectors to the private capital which has been invariably imperialist capital or those of the collaborationist concerns. Assets of billions were sold for a song. The case of BALCO is a pointer to this fact where assets worth thousands of crores of rupees were just sold off for a meager sum of 550 crore rupees and hundreds of workers were told to seek jobs at other places as the new masters were going for more automation. Everywhere the labouring people have faced hardships. Even the poorest of the poor African countries (almost 40 in number) were told to make structural changes in their economies in accordance with the requirements of imperialist capital and the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF by alluring them with the idea that their debt of about eight billion dollars will be written off by the rich countries if they oblige. The proposal costs nothing to the rich imperialist powers as many times the amount of debt has already been squeezed out of these poor countries. The said structural changes will yield much more as the ensuing exploitation and plunder of Africa will be more unbridled and will be more like the colonial times. In short, the whole of the new world order, with all its component parts, is designed to bleed white the peoples and countries of the world white. The World Bank, the IMF and the WTO have become a notorious trio of bloodsuckers most hated by the people worldwide. All around the world there has been a tide of struggles against this trio.

Seattle (1999) is considered the turning point in the struggle against these hated imperialist institutions where all kinds of anti-imperialist forces from the world converged to put up a stiff resistance. The US had not seen such a massive militant protest on its soil for the last thirty years, when it was rocked by the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War of liberation in the late sixties and early seventies. Though the peace movement of the eighties was more massive than the present one, yet it did not turn violent. But the Seattle protests indicate that the resentment against the policies of the imperialist rulers is growing and a shift is taking place in the mood of the people.

In the run-up to Seattle a wave of anti-WTO protests engulfed many European and Asian countries.

At the time of the formation of the WTO many peasant organisations sprang up in Portugal, Spain and Italy and blockaded towns with their tractors and staged huge protests to pressurise their governments’ WTO related policies. They feared that the "free trade" rules of the WTO would result in their ruination as peasants. Being in this sector for hundreds of years they did not deem it possible to shift to other professions. In Spain and Italy, thousands of peasants, most of whom were middle peasants by European standards, clashed with the police forces. And they saw that even without Mussolini and Franco the police could easily act like fascists. Their tractors were smashed or impounded, and the law enforcing agencies of the "democratic" governments arrested many of them.

In the years 1998-99 a vast array of peasant and workers organisations staged massive protest rallies in many cities of India, including Delhi, Hyderabad and Patna. In Bangalore thousands of peasants attacked the notorious, US-based Agribusiness Corporation Monsanto and vowed to continue their fight till it closes its offices and anti-peasant operations in India. Hundreds of tribal people from Madhya Pradesh demonstrated against the World Bank and WTO in Delhi denouncing the "liberalisation" in timber trade which has already led to vast destruction of the ecosystem and pushed many out of their traditional lands. The imperialist sponsored "green revolution" and the World Bank and WTO dictated policies of liberalisation in India has led peasants to a spate of suicides in many parts of the country. Peasant organisations from diverse political colours united to form a broad coalition, JAFIP (Joint Action Front of the People of India) around the single slogan of opposing the WTO.

Just before Seattle, on November 30, 1999, a global wide protest action day was observed. In the Philippines, The New Patriotic Alliance (BAYAN) and the May First Movement (KMU) staged a demonstration of several thousand people in front of the US embassy in Manila condemning the anti-people programme of the WTO. They denounced the betrayal of promises for job creation made by the Philippines government at the time of joining the WTO and accused it of serving the interests of imperialist agriculture and industry. The US and other imperialist powers were condemned for forcing countries to open up their economies for the benefit of the imperialist sharks. After the WTO came into effect the agricultural imports in the Philippines have further increased pushing local peasants into more poverty and misery.

On the same day in London, thousands of protesters raised slogans against capitalism, called the WTO a World Thieves Organisation and clashed with the police. They also raised other issues of concern to the oppressed countries, including sanctions against Iraq.

On the same day, protest demonstrations were held in major cities like Paris, Prague, Berlin and the WTO headquarters in Geneva. In Geneva the people cut off electricity to the WTO headquarters for forty-five minutes. Many of the US and Canadian cities saw wide spread demonstrations on that day. The opposition to the imperialist institutions was nearly globalised. In the US the dockworkers of almost three dozen ports closed work from three to eight hours. Work in the industrial establishments was also stopped for many hours. Such a concerted mass action on a single day throughout the world was a memorable event. It reminded one of the mass actions that were held against the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe in the early eighties.

November 30 was chosen for this worldwide action because on that day there was a ministerial level meeting of all the imperialist powers and of many of the other countries in Seattle. While solidarity actions were done throughout the world, the main battles against the imperialist onslaught on the world people were waged at Seattle.

Tens of thousands of people from around the world started assembling in Seattle days ahead of the imperialist gathering. People from all walks of life and activists of a vast array of organisations belonging to religious, cultural and environmentalist background, and students, workers, peasants, communist revolutionaries, anarchists, women groups and trade union groups put up their respective camps. The people covered all points in various sectors of Seattle wherever the government delegates and representatives of financial institutions were to stay or the conference of the imperialist sharks was to be held. The people came up wearing their traditional colourful costumes, armed with a vast treasure of literature, and carried the determination to confront the state police and other security agencies. Flags, banners and bandanas of many colours including green, white and red suggested various forces had converged around a single issue having their own solutions for building a new world in opposition to the present imperialist world system of death, destruction and misery. The city looked like a collage – an arena for a great celebration, a riot of colours, a seething rage and of a bursting discontent. And also, there were many who just came along to look at what was going on and what it was all for.

All around the venue of the conference the protest lines were divided for direct action and confrontation, peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins with intermittent breaks for discussions, debates and education classes—another collage of a variety of struggle forms accompanied with music dancing, singing and blaring, and, of course, preparing for the worst from the security agencies of the United States of Amerikkka. Peoples’ mood depicted a blend of festivities and rebelliousness. And what happened there in the end can be rightly termed as a festival of rebellions.

The US State, on the other hand, had readied itself with rubber and plastic bullets, tear gas and concussion grenades, water cannons and pepper sprays, and finally, with weapons and ammunitions for a real war. The Seattle police, FBI, US secret service, Bureau of alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, State Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency all were there to ensure a smooth running of the WTO ministerial conference. All the arrangements went farther than mere riot management. Helicopters were pushed into service to observe the situation on the ground and pass information on the movement of protesters on to the State task forces below. Seattle turned into a sort of a battle ground within the US itself.

Clinton tried to placate the protesters by saying that what the people say should be heard by the WTO. He even recognised their right to protest. He wanted to make it look like that the WTO was not anti-people and that it will take care of and benefit all the people in all countries of the world. As if this "free trade" monster was not to further increase the exploitation, plunder and oppression in the oppressed as well as the imperialist countries and was designed to look into the human concerns of the world. But, the elaborate preparations of the State to swoop down on the protesters betrayed the real intentions of the administration, and its real fears. Many people from the oppressed countries were not allowed to enter the US to participate in the People’s Global Action Caravan that was to start from New York and march to the venue of protest actions in Seattle.

In Seattle more than fifty thousand people assembled on November 30 from across the US, Canada, Europe and the third world. What ensued for four days was "an amazing festival of defiance, colour, music, theater and celebration." People fought the police attacks of tear gas, clubs, pepper spray, concussion grenades, water canons and rubber bullets with missiles of Molotov Cocktails, bottles and stones, raised huge piles of fire as burning barricades, occupied major intersections leading to the conference venue of the world thieves, dismantled iron barricades put up by the police, blocked the entry of many delegates to the site and the hotels where they were to stay, smashed window shops of big business houses. The mayor of Seattle had to declare a "state of emergency" in downtown Seattle for the first time since world war two.

On December first, the authorities declared many areas as "no protest zones" only to enrage people further to wrest back their right to protest. The protesters answered with a call to take back the streets under the slogan: "Whose Streets? Our Streets." And thousands of people around many of such "no protest zones" confronted the police first by dancing and singing then staging blitzkriegs to reoccupy these zones. Nearly two hundred people sustained injuries from the police brutalities while not to talk of the thousands who were temporarily incapacitated by gas and concussion grenades. Yet they learnt on the battlefield itself on how to treat the effects of gas and continue the fight. They would pick up the fuming tear gas bombs and throw them back into the police rows putting them on a run. Dozens of policemen were sent packing to the hospitals. One could see scores of people hammering the pavements and making heaps of stone missiles which were being continuously supplied to the front line fighters who were mostly young students or the so-called careless, freelance and spoiled youth of the working class shanty towns of the imperialist citadels. Seattle was declared a "war zone" by the authorities.

Hundreds of people were arrested on the very first day of the protests and sent to jails. A large part of the protesting people assigned itself the task of picketing the jail gates and blocking all kind of traffic from and into them. A twenty-four hour blockade started on December 2. In Seattle the police cannot deny a person access to a lawyer for more than eight hours. But the police flouted the rule. Many people were beaten up and sprayed with pepper at the time of arrest, many others were shot with rubber bullets though they were not part of the protesters and happened to be trapped by chance or were the residents of the downtown area which is the heart of the city and the main shopping district.

Clinton, who had previously hailed the right to protest, then defended the police measures and condemned the "violence" by a "handful of protesters". He accused the "instigators" of violence as anti-people and the opponents of freedom, democracy and human rights. All these three things had been part of his usual rhetoric throughout his presidential years. And during the last part of his incumbency the people around the US, and the world over, saw the trampling of these values right within the US and under his very directions in Seattle. The people of Seattle commented that they had never seen such police brutalities before. At one intersection the police displayed automatic weapons to force the crowds back. As soon as the police took out their guns the youths began chanting, "the whole world is watching." And the American people realised that American guns were not only meant to kill the oppressed people of the world but could also be aimed at them. That was an indication that the US police could use not only riot guns but war guns too. Within the US the American people had been fed with the idea that the US uses guns to defend democracy and human rights worldwide. The world already knows about what the US guns do in other lands. Till then the people in the US had only been resenting whenever the body bags of US peacekeepers (read, interventionists) arrived from overseas. In Seattle they came to know that the US security guards could create body bags for the US citizens too. But, some how, this situation was saved for the Americans and Italians were to be the first to experience and witness the killing by real guns when the Italian police killed one demonstrator in Genoa and seriously injured two during the year 2001 summit of the G-8. The people in the West are beginning to see that the State there is not to defend democracy and the human rights of the people but for the defence of imperialist capital and monsters of the "free trade" mantra. The new world order and the attacks of imperialist institutions are not only directed against the people of the oppressed countries and are bringing death to countless men, women and children there, but are also directed against the people of the advanced world. There is an unbreakable link of violence of the capital in the countries of oppressed world and right within the imperialist countries. The juggernaut of capital does not differentiate between the people when it comes to defending its exploitative interests. It is becoming clearer now, with the attack on the basic needs of society after the demise of the concept of the welfare state.

And, violence was a big question of debate among the protesters. It especially became sharp when the main stream (imperialist) press reported on the destruction of window shops and stoning of other business establishments. They accused anarchists among the otherwise peaceful protesters for this violence. No doubt, the anarchists too were there. Fed-up with the way the American system goes they want its destruction. But more than that the American imperialist system is responsible for what goes around in the Philippines and Mexico and India in other oppressed countries of the world. The imperialist agencies like the IMF, the World Bank and WTO, which are mainly in the service of US imperialism along with other imperialist powers, are responsible for the death of millions of people and the Seattle ministerial conference was meant to further increase the power of these death machines. The violence, which these institutions perpetrate around the world, can only be destroyed with more powerful and more organised violence entailing hundreds of millions of people around the world. The people debated over it and listened to the voices from the activists of the oppressed countries. Most of the participants in the Seattle protests agreed that they needed a better world where capital would not ride roughshod over the lives of the people and where profit would not be put before the people. People like William Hinton were also there among the speakers and as protesters. The debaters differed in their opinions about the use of violence yet they were united in opposing the worldwide attack of "globalisation". The debate around violence goes on amongst the voices of protest, with those for violent revolutions in the advanced countries advocating the need to smash the entire world system of oppression and exploitation. The protesters saw the US police acting like robots targeting even scores of ordinary people who were not in any way associated with the protests. They saw that it was with violence that the authority of the WTO was being established over the heads of the world people and promises to listen to their voice was just a big fraud. This became clearer as the struggle against these institutions was carried on further after Seattle. This debate is one important achievement of the Seattle protests as it has been openly discussed in the public after many years, especially, when it has been declared that "communism is dead and capitalism is forever"

Many more new things were brought to the fore by the Seattle protests. Bitten by market consumerism the American middle class has long enjoyed the fruits of imperialism that has fleeced the people in the oppressed countries white and showered untold miseries on the people in these countries. Now a part of it is beginning to realise that the real forces working behind this system are also against their interests. They turned up in tens of thousands to oppose the policies of their government which is nothing but a governing body for the interests of capital which puts profit before people and has little concern for their wellbeing. That democracy and human rights were the other frauds as were seen in Seattle, where the US imperialist State had itself trampled over the democratic right to protest. That the protests cannot for long go peacefully if the people want to have their opinions carried out in practice. They opposed the WTO regime and wanted to stop its conference from being held on the US soil. But the US government went all out to see this regime imposed throughout the world. Though the Seattle conference of sharks was declared a failure yet this failure was due to the differences among the sharks themselves. The people have a long way to go to smash these institutions and the forces defending them.

Another important achievement of Seattle is the developing unity and struggle of diverse political forces opposed to capitalist globalisation. From democratic right activists to anarchists and communists, from gays and lesbians to cultural activists, from peace brigades to women groups and environmentalists, from non-government organisations (NGOs) to trade unions, from tribal peoples to students, youth, peasants and workers, all coming together for a single objective—opposition to globalisation. In the process, a parallel stream of globalisation, the globalisation of protests, is emerging which is definitely pushing the people towards a heightened political debate over the alternative, to change to what, what to bring in place of this imperialist dominated monstrous world? No doubt, there are extreme poles of reformists, anarchists and revolutionary communists. In between, there is a whole array of disgruntled people who are just protesters protesting against their present state of affairs, they are fed up with the workings of this system and want a better world. The people who, at other times, would flock to the concerts of Michael Jackson or Madonna just to have fun from the sickening drudgery of their life are coming on to the streets to protest and fight for a better life. That is why there came up diverse forms of struggle and various kinds of people occupied different intersections to put up fights in a way they thought fit. Some going for a direct assault on the state forces and storming the barricades of police defence and others opting for huge sit-ins blocking the streets, another section protested by dancing and stomping while some others would just put their pants down before the police. However, singing was common to all though everyone had his or her own songs of protest. That is why the Seattle protests, and later all big protests staged in the imperialist cities, have been a combination of revolts and colourful celebrations. Then, revolt itself is a celebration, a liberating act. The over-all atmosphere was charged with intense political activity, and debates raged over on how to take on the authorities and what forms of struggle would be the best suited and up to what extent and height the struggle must be taken in the ultimate analysis. The authorities wanted to take advantage of the diversity among the protesters and strove hard, from Clinton downwards and in the imperialist mainstream press, to create a wedge between violent and non-violent people. Yet the police acted the way it has been trained to do its duty for the state—violently. The police did not differentiate much between the violent and the non-violent and between the protesters and the ordinary bystanders. The violent behaviour of the police convinced many of the necessity of more militancy on the part of protesters. On the first day the media had flashed the brutalities of the police but later on the photographs of broken window shops and missile littered streets were the major highlights in print. There were stories and photos to depict the ‘lawlessness and violence’ of the protesting people.

The media controlled by big business carries on its dirty task of serving the capitalists well when it depicts a healthy white hand taking up a frail, dehydrated hand of an Ethiopian child to show how caring are the imperialists for the poor of the world. It never shows a powerful white hand squeezing the black one to its bare bones. Only revolutionary art will depict that. And in Seattle, revolutionary art too had its time showing clippings, videos, graffiti, banners, cartoons and skits about imperialist exploitation, and the destruction and oppression that is being carried out throughout the world. The walls and street floors around the downtown area were turned into a sort of a museum of revolt. While Madonnas and Jacksons are mere distractions the rebel art represents the real inner yearnings of the people of this age.

Seattle underlined the need for more concerted and powerful battles in the future.

And these battles are being fought wherever the institutions or the leaders of the imperialist nations meet. Warsaw, Quebec, Windsor, Nice, Prague, Davos, Paris, Tokyo, Gothenburg, Genoa, and many others have seen their own war zones enacted and forces of the State swooping down over protesters everywhere. The organisations and people protesting globalisation have increased in numbers. Globalisation is facing an increasing globalisation of opposition and the struggle is slowly turning from mere pressuring for reforms into anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism.

The protesters declared that not a single meeting of the capitalist globalisation forces would go without encountering opposition from the people and this has been the case ever since. The struggling people have further extended their target to include imperialist dominated institutions other than the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Now, the group of most powerful imperialist countries (the G-8) and the Organisation of American States (OAS) have also been included in the target list. Quite recently, the NATO and the European Union (EU) too have come into their target orbit.

After Seattle no meeting of the imperialist institutions has gone without facing determined opposition from the people. The rage against the "free market" and "free trade" mantra, especially in the imperialist countries, has continued to grow.

Among many, the next major battle was against the US dominated OAS and the world’s biggest regional trade organisation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This FTAA encompasses 32 poor countries of the Western Hemisphere plus the US and Canada. Only Cuba has remained out of this trade organisation which is meant to further rip-off Latin America. FTAA is a sequel to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) which was formed in 1994 (had came into effect in January 1995) by three members including Mexico other than the US and Canada. Ever since the formation of NAFTA the US has been insisting on extending it to the whole of western hemisphere of the globe. Poor Mexicans had enormously suffered at the hands of this "free trade" organisation for four years. The number of people below poverty line jumped from thirty percent to fifty percent in this period. Removal of restrictions on the movement of capital from one country to an other contributed to the increase in poverty rather than to decrease it as had been promised by the US. The US already had been the biggest looter of Latin America and NAFTA opened up Mexico even more. NAFTA was greeted in Mexico by the armed rebellion of the indigenous peasant people of the Chiapas. This rebellion had rocked southeastern Mexico on January first 1994. In June 2000 at a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean countries in Windsor, Canada the OAS gathered to have talks to launch the FTAA to open up the whole of that part of the world on the pattern of Mexico. Thousands of people from the US, Canada and Latin America protested outside the meeting place and fought with the mounted Canadian police. In April 2001 the heads of states of all these countries again met in Quebec, Canada to formally decide on the FTAA. Along with the economic agenda there was also a proposal to launch a hemispheric military force to enforce "order" in all these countries. This was a new proposal to collectively and "lawfully" intervene in these countries to suppress the resistance of the people, especially the armed revolutionary movements of Peru and Colombia. For decades the US sponsored terrorist military regimes in central and Latin America have been exterminating the rebellious peasants and youth through the vigilante death squads. The CIA had been notoriously active in that dance of death and the whole world knows this. Now the agenda was to carry that further through "free trade’, "free market", "free elections" and of course, with the formation of an All Americas Military force.

Quebec proved another Seattle for the imperialists and reactionaries. The decision on FTAA was not destined to be taken without stiff resistance from the people. Fifty thousand people flocked to Quebec from the US, Canada and Latin America. It was ten times greater than the protesters in Windsor. Again people from all walks of life and also those who want French speaking Quebec to be independent from Canada, joined the protests. Quebec too was declared a war zone. 6000 strong riot police was called in to defend the venue of the summit. Imperialists and their lackeys could hold the summit only after making elaborate security measures never seen in Canada before. The "free trade" and unrestricted movement of capital not only affects the economies of the oppressed countries but it also makes way for moving whole industries to the cheap labour areas thereby affecting employment in the imperialist countries.

Like Seattle, Quebec resisters put up a determined struggle. Gas, plastic bullets, clubs were fought back with Molotov cocktails and stone missiles. Here too the authorities tried to create dissensions in the resistance by terming them violent and non-violent and condemning the fightback as violence. But the people at large rejected this stratagem of the rulers. Amid clashes 400 people were arrested. The resistance and protests in Quebec had their impact on the G-8 meet in Tokyo that was held later, the next month. In Tokyo the police numbering tens of thousands blocked miles around the conference venue. For the security of the imperialist chieftains the Japanese government spent an unprecedented amount of 780 million dollars for a two-day extravaganza. It was no small amount by the standard of a poor country. But then, it was a conference of the thieves and thieves don’t count when they spend. They had sat there to devise more nefarious means to fleece the poor people of the world. Yet Tokyo too got its share of protests by the people and violence by the state. But, back to Quebec.

Quebec was literally turned into a gas chamber by the imperialists. The citizens of Quebec – those who did not feel the need to protest—came to the help of the protesters to treat and save them from tear gas and concussion grenades. Even nature came to the help of the protesters as at one of the most militant intersections the gas was carried back to the police by the winds. This created a melee among the police and the protesters gained their lost ground again. Though the protesters spoke different languages yet they communicated with each other by chanting "solidarite!"

On the whole, about ten thousand people actively battled in the war zone. This segment also happened to be known as the Red Zone as nearly two hundred red flags fluttered among flags of Palestine, Cuba, Chile and Quebec. Also there were flags from various unions and other organisations with colours black, white and blue. The whole scenario looked like a riot of colours. One could see from the movement of flags now charging and now regrouping resisters. The fightback of the people was wave like. One could see not only shells fired by the police but also the rocks, bottles and the sticks that were peoples’ missiles. For two days the people from Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador and other Latin American and Caribbean countries along with Palestinians, Iranians, Indians and others fought side by side with the US and Canadian comrades. The emerging crisis in the societies of the west is bringing various peoples together and a common struggle against capital is cementing their unity. The Quebec fightback was mainly led by thousands of youth and college students.

On the second day of the resistance the protesters organised an alternative Peoples’ Summit of Americas. Herein participated labour unions and progressive organisations. The Quebec resistance conveyed the message that millions around the world who are becoming victims of the global offensive of capital have no alternative than to strike back at this offensive in a broad united front and in a way that revolutionises the forms of struggle.

Ever since the time of Seattle no meeting of the imperialists has gone without facing increasingly militant resistance. Gothenburg and Genoa 2001 have proved that in the wake of the current phase of capitalist globalisation the people of the advanced world are forced by the circumstances to rethink about their easy way of life and anticipating threats to their living standards are increasingly turning to mass militant struggles.

The month of June 2001 was marked by an amazing upsurge in the struggle against the forces of global capitalism. The US president went to Europe to attend a number of summits and wherever he went he was greeted with contempt from the protesting people. He was termed by environmentalists and nature lovers as Toxic Texan because of his position on the Kyoto Protocol and by human rights activists as a Murderer and Butcher due to the highest number of executions carried on during his governorship. He faced militant demonstrations in Spain, Poland, and Slovenia. But at Gothenburg, where the European Union was having its Summit and it was to be turned into an EU-US Summit, the imperialists tasted the wrath of the people in a big way. Nearly thirty thousand people from across Europe assembled there to oppose capitalist globalisation, the EU and the US. Such a huge gathering at Gothenburg surprised the imperialists as they had least expected that in a country like Sweden where capitalism is in its most "generous" appearance, and at Gothenburg which is one of the most peaceful cities of Europe, the people would turn up in such great numbers to oppose globalisation. But again, the peaceful coastal city was turned into a war zone. The Swedish Prime Minister tried to woo the people by saying that Europe was being shaped up as a counter balance (rival imperialist block) to the US domination of the world and as such the people should support this. But his plea did not create any impact, instead, he was confronted with scorn and slogans against globalisation. The city was flooded with demonstrators and many marches were organised in various parts of the city for mobilisation. The police of this "capitalist heaven" responded with military like operations to break up the resistance and sent many people to jail. Police even attacked the sleeping people or when they were just gathering for actions. Sweden, for decades had not seen such a behaviour of the police but now, swooping down on the peaceful assemblies even, was a reality. The demonstrators broke down the defence barricades at many places and clashed with the police thugs. In one case the police surrounded a bridge, hauled up the people there and sent them to jail. Some of the activists jumped into the river to escape.

The military style operations of the police ripped open the brutal imperialist face of Swedish social democracy. The Swedish authorities accused the "extreme left" for violence and justified the murderous policies of capitalist globalisation. One policeman shot three people and injured them. It is an indication that the rubber bullets will be replaced by the real bullets when resistance builds up and becomes a real threat to the destructive and oppressive imperialist system.

At Gothenburg the EU was added to the target list along with the WTO, IMF, World Bank, FTAA and the G-8.

Genoa, the Italian port city, became the next battlefield for anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist forces in the advanced world. The venue had been selected by the G-8 thieves for their yearly conference in July after the previous was held in Tokyo. Desperate at the growing resistance to imperialist conferences the gang decided to keep off shore and remain in lavish and fortified steamers to avoid direct confrontation with the protesters. While others landed on land the US president refused to come down from his steamer hide out. Anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation forces from all over Europe launched a vigorous campaign to reach Italy and booked trains for the purpose. More than one hundred thousand protesters reached Genoa on the day of the conference. Though the two-day conference was held on the steamers the streets of Genoa witnessed widespread rage and anger.

At Genoa, the Seattle and Quebec spirit was repeated on a still higher level with scores of battles fought with the Italian security forces. Manhandling, beating, gassing and firing of plastic and rubber bullets on an unprecedented scale made one think that in the present "democratic" order in Italy the spirit of Mussolini lives on. Here too, a policeman shot three protesters point blank. One of the young men, Carlo Giuliani, died at the spot while two were taken to the hospital in a serious condition. The dead man became the first martyr of anti-globalisation struggle and also the first protester to die at the hands of the Italian police in the last twenty years. On June 26, two days after the conclusion of the conference, the Italian people protested against the unprecedented repression in Genoa. On that day one lakh and fifty thousand people protested on the streets throughout Italy. A month after his death hundreds of people gathered at the place where he was shot and took out a silent procession reminding the people not to forget his sacrifice and for getting prepared to face more brutalities from the Italian authorities.

Genoa too was described by the European press as a war zone. War zone means an area where a real war is fought. The term has come to describe the anti-globalisation battles that are being fought in the form of huge protests. The strength of the anti-capital fighters choked all the streets of Genoa and police was brought from all over Italy to keep them in control. The whole city of Genoa reverberated with a defiant mood and active resistance as if a dozen of Gothenburgs were being enacted. Hundreds were injured and thousands were arrested in Genoa. The scale of protests was unprecedented and the temper mutinous. Among all kinds of flags one could see a great number of red flags indicating the struggle for a whole new system. Big photographs of Marx, Stalin and Mao marked the presence of rejuvenating communist forces in the imperialist citadels. A new beginning is hovering over the horizon and the imperialist verdict about the death of communism has itself started fearing death.

After Genoa the imperialists have decided that the time for any future meetings will be cut short, and probably, other means of meetings will be opted for, like video or Internet conferencing. They have also decided to conduct future meetings of imperialist institutions either in the third world countries or at remote corners of the imperialist states. They are also thinking of meeting in far off islands where it will be difficult for the protesters to reach. The scare of the protests is so big in the minds of the imperialists that they have already cut short the proposed World Bank annual conference from seven days to two. The Italian government has decided to shift the annual NATO Summit September 26 and 27) and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Summit to obscure and smaller places in Italy

The Annual Session of the World Bank and the IMF to be held in Washington DC in the coming month (end of September) is creating severe headaches for the authorities of the District of Colombia. The area is a high security zone as the White House is situated there. They have requested either not to hold the said meeting in Washington DC at all or have asked for the requisitioning of additional security forces from other States. The fear of the self styled champions of world peace is that they will have to resort to the more blatant use of armed force to contain the rising tide of protests and that would lead to further exposure of the fascist character of the imperialist state in the minds of the people. They also see a threat to the image of the peaceful societies and States of the imperialist countries that has been consciously built over the years in contrast to the third world dictatorships and the erstwhile revisionist States of the Soviet Union and east Europe. The imperialist police has already traveled from rubber bullets to plastic bullets to the real ones. Genoa and Quebec haunt the imperialists.

The mayor of Washington DC has written to the US president Bush that demonstrations "of an intensity, scope and magnitude that we have never seen in this city" may occur surpassing the one hundred thousand mark. The last Annual Session was held in Prague and the spate of protest marches there had bewildered the authorities making them unable to cope with the intensity of protests. Now, the District of Colombia authorities state that the situation will be like a civil war. This may be a subterfuge to swoop down heavily on the protesters as the US has been doing with the movements of the black people.

In the last of September Britain will also see mass protest demonstrations when the Labour Party meets for its annual conference in Brighton. Ten thousand people are expected to converge at the venue to denounce the Labour Party’s policies of globalisation. The demonstrations in both Washington and Brighton would be simultaneous. The British protesters have said that they will celebrate the Washington DC protests against the World Bank and IMF by taking on the imperialist Labour Party in Britain itself and will make the rulers listen.

Though the situation is going to be intense yet it is far from one of a civil war. The "advanced" societies are in crisis and in the process of radicalisation. The people of these countries have a long way to go from "make them listen" to that of forcing them out.

August 22, 2001

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