SEATTLE, Washington, November 30, 1999 (ENS) - The World Trade
Organization (WTO) Director General Mike Moore opened the first plenary
session of the four day ministerial meeting this afternoon at the Washington
State Convention Center. Opening ceremonies this morning were cancelled
because protesters surging through downtown Seattle have disrupted the
city entirely.
Police arrest demonstrators in downtown Seattle (All photos
by Richard Lewis)
Police are subduing demonstrators with tear gas, pepper spray
and rubber bullets and arresting them to clear the streets around the Sheraton
Hotel and other meeting locations.
Delegates from the 134 WTO member nations waited for three hours
in the Paramount Theater where Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was
to officially open the four day ministerial meeting, before the ceremonies
were cancelled. The remarks of U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky
and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan were not heard due to the
cancellation.
An unidentified woman protestor is dragged from the stage of
the Paramount Theater
Police arrested a woman demonstrator who took the Paramount
stage during the long wait and tried to open a dialogue about free speech
with the delegates. Moore, referring to the unauthorized remarks said,
"Somebody said something about free speech. What we're trying to do here
is listen to the ministers who are trying to present their countries' perspectives.
I hope we can do that."
Using tear gas and rubber bullets, police cleared away a human
chain that formed early this morning outside the Sheraton Hotel where most
of the delegates are staying. The whole hotel is in a lockdown with police
not letting anybody in or out. Every now and then delegates would approach
the hotel and be confronted by the protesters who could easily identify
the delegates, older White men in camel hair coats and dark blue and gray
suits.
At another human chain around the corner at 6th and Pike between
the hotel and the Washington State Convention Center, police arrested about
a dozen demonstrators after putting pepper spray in their eyes. A group
of young, White, men and women in their twenties locked arms and sat down
in the middle of the crosswalk in front of a group of big superstores clustered
on the corner - Microsoft Gameworks, Niketown and FAO Schwartz among them.
Police arrest demonstrators using pepper spray
As police applied pepper spray to their eyes to break up the
demonstration, the crowd chanted, "We're not violent, how about you?" and
"The world is watching." Police put them in zip tie handcuffs and dragged
them over behind a police van. Some Seattle police officers began putting
water in their eyes to help ease the burn of the pepper spray.
Some protesters have makeshift gas masks made up of swimming
goggles and dust masks intended for home improvement work. Around the Sheraton
Hotel this morning they were retreating and pressing again, pushing, shoving
and cursing but using no physical violence.
But after tear gas was used at 4th and Union, protesters overturned
the big potted plants that had been placed along the street as decorations
to welcome the WTO delegates; they grabbed clumps of dirt from the pots
and threw them at police.
The protesters are a diverse cultural mix of Hispanic, Filippino,
Vietnamese and White people, old men with long beards, young women, big
lumberjacks and steelworkers.
Police apply water to the eyes of a pepper-sprayed demonstrator
The labor march organized by the AFL-CIO went off as planned
although it was delayed several hours by the general mayhem.
Forty thousand people gathered inside the Memorial Stadium at
Seattle Center for the AFL-CIO rally. Many other people joined as the march
progressed nearly a mile to the Convention Center. Some participants estimated
up to 75,000 people took part. Police estimated there were about 40,000
marchers.
The feeling of the marchers was joyous as they stepped along
to different kinds of drums and percussion instruments, even a bagpipe.
Some of the groups represented included: engineers, longshoremen,
electrical workers, machinists, nurses, teachers, painters, farmers, Earth
First! and the Sierra Club, the International Indian Treaty Council, and
Young Republicans Opposed to the WTO.
Marchers carried banners with slogans like, "Stop Corporate
Globalism," "Fair Trade, Not Free Trade," "WTO, If It Doesn't Work for
Working Families, It Doesn't Work," "No Patents on Life," "Stop Child Labor,"
and "China Out of Tibet."
Farmers march in the AFL-CIO parade
The United Steelworkers Union sponsored a street blimp - a driving
billboard - that said, "The WTO Destroying Millions of American Jobs."
Another yellow blimp floated in the air above the marchers bore the steelworkers
union name. Fifteen foot tall street puppets representing political leaders
marched along the parade route. Greenpeace had a green inflatable condom
emblazoned with the words "Practice Safe Trade."
But not all the street scenes were so good-natured. In one block
of 5th Avenue demonstrators sprayed "Pigs," the anarchy sign and "We Have
Won" on police cars, slashed the tires and stuck anti-WTO bumper stickers
all over the cars.
This afternoon thousands of people were still congregating in
the center of the downtown area marching and milling about, yelling anti-WTO
protest slogans.
Windows of the Disney store have been smashed in. Outside, a
15 foot statue of Donald Duck is holding an anti-WTO picket sign somebody
stuck in his hand. Windows of the GAP store, the Banana Republic store
and McDonalds restaurant have also been smashed. Dumpsters have been dragged
into the middle of the street which is also blocked with overturned newspaper
boxes.
On Wednesday and Thursday, police will have the daunting task
of ensuring the security of U.S. President Bill Clinton at the talks.
In a surprise development late Monday night, Cuban President
Fidel Castro and a team of delegates arrived in Seattle for the WTO ministerial
meeting despite reports that he refused to attend, fearing his arrest.
Castro was assured of diplomatic immunity by the U.S. government
after Cuban-American leaders, including three members of Congress, demanded
that the Washington state attorney general detain him on murder charges
related to the downing of two civilian aircraft in 1996 that killed three
people.
WTO talks are to cover liberalizing trade restrictions on chemicals,
agricultural and forest products, e-commerce, medical equipment and scientific
instruments, environmental goods, energy, fish, gems and jewelry, and toys.
Postcards from Seattle
Questions to ponder
Who decided on the terror strategy?
Where did all the money come from for the equipment and training
to carry it out?
Text: "Role players acting as rioters attack Marines from "C"
Company, 1st Battlion, 6th Marines, during Urban Warrior training in Quantico,
Virginia. Photo by: SGT CHRIS COX"
"Marines from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine participated
in an experimental urban training package last September and October. This
training was composed of basic MOUT skills, enhanced MOUT skills and security
operations in the urban environment. The following photos were taken from
Camp Lejeune, NC and Quantico, VA."
MOUT stands for "Mobile Operations in Urban Terrain" and it
has been a recent obsession of the US military. In just the past few years,
the military has conducted urban warfare exercises in over a dozen US cities.
Nine months before the Seattle WTO meeting, the US military,
with NATO guests, conducted a massive urban warfare training exercise in
the city of Oakland and other parts of Northern California. West coast
police department personnel were invited to participate.
Playing "rioter"
It's a fact that rioter "role playing" is part of every thorough
riot squad training. How hard would it have been for Seattle police or
police collaborators to don masks and two-way radios (standard police equipment,
by the way) and break a few windows? Were the so called "anarchists" using
the radios to communicate with each other, or were they being directed
to locations that had the most news cameras?
This may explain why the Seattle police can't or won't produce
any of the so called "anarchists" who are responsible for millions of dollars
worth of property damage - even though they claim to have arrested "several"
of them. It may also explain the deafening silence on the part of the local
new media on the same subject.
UPDATE 12-2-99/7:30 PM - CNN reports US military sent "advisors,"
including active duty Special Forces, to "assist" Seattle police in their
preparations for the WTO meeting.
Back to Postcards from Seattle"
KINKO'S ADMITS THAT XEROX COLOR COPIERS HAVE EMBEDDED
TRACKING CODES
by Joel Skousen
A Kinko's manager inadvertently admitted to JJ Johnson in a
dispute over a request to make a color copy of his drivers license that
all new Xerox color copiers have been designed to alter the copy image
with a coded algorithm that government agencies can trace. As he told Johnson
this, the line waiting to get color copies suddenly melted away (smart
people). The manager implied that Xerox was pressured to accept this tracking
electronic modifications. I would surmise that the government threaten
Xerox with a loss of all government copier contracts if they did not sign
onto this gross violation of privacy. He also said other major copier brands
will be pressured to do the same. So anytime you get color copies at Kinkos,
the government can trace it back to where the copy was made.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Quotations permitted with attribution
Return to WebToday
http://www.tv-u.com/webtoday.html
Hackers uncover secret billions of Arafat's PLO
By Tom Gross in Jerusalem
Palestinian National Authority
The Jerusalem Post
Anti Online [computer security website]
The Hackers home page
THE Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has salted away
billions of pounds for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in secret
foreign bank accounts and investments, including property in London.
The disclosure about the hidden wealth of his PLO comes amid
deepening economic hardship in his Gaza and West Bank fiefdoms. It will
also hamper his efforts to woo a huge influx of European aid for his fledgling
Palestinian regime.
The timing of the disclosures could not have been more embarrassing
as Mr Arafat, seated before a stage built to resemble a giant Christmas
crib, yesterday opened Millennium celebrations in Bethlehem. He hopes that
the year of festivities in Jesus's birthplace will showcase his push for
an independent Palestinian state.
New details of the vast PLO fortune he controls have come to
light following a series of computer break-ins at the headquarters of the
Palestine Liberation Organisation in Tunis.
The hackers discovered that the PLO maintains about £5
billion in numbered bank accounts in Zurich, Geneva and New York. It also
holds accounts with smaller sums in north Africa, Europe and Asia. They
are not registered in the PLO's name, but in the names of private individuals.
The records also showed that the PLO owns shares on the Frankfurt,
Paris and Tokyo stock exchanges, including stock in the German car giant
Mercedes Benz, and property in prestigious areas of European capitals,
including Mayfair in London.
The organisation, which once specialised in aircraft hijackings,
also has shares in several airlines, including the national carriers of
the Maldives and Guinea Bissau. The computer security breach is believed
on the West Bank to have been carried out by PLO officials disgruntled
with Mr Arafat's leadership. "They wished to dispel the smokescreen created
around the PLO's finances," a Palestinian official told The Telegraph.
Mr Arafat has always refused to comment on reports about the
foreign bank accounts. But the disclosures caused anger in poverty-stricken
Gaza. One embittered Palestinian said: "Why is he sitting on a mountain
of gold, while there is a desperate lack of jobs and medical supplies here?"
Mr Arafat is both president of the Palestinian Authority, the
semi-autonomous organisation that governs parts of Gaza and the West Bank,
and the chairman of the PLO, which maintains its headquarters in Tunis,
its base during its terrorist heyday.
The creation of the Palestinian Authority, the embryonic government
for a future Palestinian state, was supposed to lead to the winding-up
of the PLO - and make the Palestinian leadership accountable and law-abiding.
But the authority has in fact been repeatedly accused by domestic opponents
of rampant corruption and mismanagement.
The web of secret bank accounts and assets held around the world
is believed to be so complex that only Mr Arafat himself and two of his
most trusted aides know the overall picture. Much of the money is the result
of "taxes" levied on Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Gulf states
in the Seventies and Eighties, and of donations from wealthy states such
as Saudi Arabia.
The assets are controlled by Mr Arafat himself and it is not
known what would happen to them if the 70-year-old, who is said to be suffering
from Parkinson's disease, should die. An Israeli intelligence analyst said:
"These revelations are almost certainly not the whole story. No one can
know the full extent of the PLO's assets. They are so well hidden."
The disclosures are also likely to prompt international donors,
including the European Union countries, to ask why Mr Arafat is still demanding
aid for his Palestinian authority. Nor will they have been impressed by
his decision to invite Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia's president, to Bethlehem.
4 December 1999: Arafat steals show as Israel misses out on
Millennium
2 December 1999: Arafat gets tough after corruption allegations
he United States has resigned itself to the eventual creation
-- over Washington's objections -- of a U.N. International Criminal Court
to be modeled after war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Even if the United States does not
ratify the treaty, American citizens will be subject to arrest and trial
as the treaty document is now drafted.
International backing for the court
became apparent this week as legal experts gathered at the United Nations
to discuss fine print in a treaty that would establish the world judicial
body.
David Scheffer, assistant secretary
of state for war crimes issues, acknowledged that the court is on track,
even without the United States.
"We expect many nations to ratify by
the end of next year," he told The Washington Times.
He also said that the presence of many
U.S. allies on the court would ratchet up pressure on the United States
to join, but added: "We're never going to sign a treaty we can't support."
The United States voted against creating
the court last summer, saying that the structure of the tribunal would
not protect American troops from frivolous or politically motivated indictments
and prosecutions.
Although 90 nations have already signed
the treaty, only five have formally ratified the document.
Ratification by 60 nations is required
for the tribunal to begin working -- something experts expect to happen
within the next two years.
Mr. Scheffer said the U.S. delegation
was still hoping to secure language in the treaty that would provide protection
for Americans -- enough that the United States could eventually join.
He said negotiators were hoping to
make strong provisions for national prosecutions that would pre-empt the
international tribunal's jurisdiction.
They are also hoping to define agreed-upon
crimes and rules of procedure in such a way that U.S. troops would be highly
unlikely to ever be called before the court.
Mr. Scheffer said Secretary of State
Madeleine K. Albright was discussing the tribunal with her counterparts
in numerous foreign ministries.
In voting against the court's creation,
the United States was joined by a curious collection of nations: Iraq,
Libya, Israel, Russia, China and India.
But supporters range from Germany to
South Africa to Australia: an increasingly diverse and powerful bloc of
nations that experts say will provide the political leadership and financial
heft to ease concerns of smaller and more cautious nations.
All of the European Union has signed
the treaty, and Italy has ratified it.
The German government on Tuesday announced
that it would ratify the treaty but did not say when.
France has committed to ratifying it
within the next few months. The governments of Britain, Canada and the
Netherlands say they will complete ratification within the next year.
The entire European Union is expected
to approve the statute by the end of 2000, said a statement read by a diplomat
from Finland. Finland currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
The European Union has promised financial
and legal assistance to the court, to be located in The Hague.
The court will prosecute allegations
of war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity, and will do
so without direct authorization of the U.N. Security Council, where the
United States holds a veto.
Although it has no enforcement mechanism,
all nations -- including the United States -- would be subject to the international
court's jurisdiction, the treaty document says.
This means that all nations will be
required to comply with the court's demands for information, evidence,
witnesses and suspects, the treaty says.
"We cannot recognize the court's competence
in bringing prosecutions against U.S. personnel engaged in official actions
when the U.S. government is not a party," Mr. Scheffer told the U.N. legal
committee in October.
The court will not be retroactive,
but the existing tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia will eventually
be rolled under its umbrella.
The financing of the court has not
been decided, but many nations hope that the bulk of the court's expenses
-- particularly in the start-up years -- will be paid from the U.N. regular
budget.
This means that Washington could be
assessed up to one-quarter of the court's budget, even if it does not accept
the treaty.
Legal experts and delegates from around
the world have repeatedly said that the court will be severely limited
without the financial, legal and intelligence-gathering capacities of the
United States.
"There is no doubt the court would
be much stronger with the United States than without," said Bruce Broomhall,
an observer with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
However, he said, it is "out of the
question" that signatories would allow Washington to renegotiate portions
of the treaty.
Foreign delegates say they increasingly
doubt whether Washington can be reassured.
Several nations and legal experts have
complained that any protections afforded to American troops would be more
than enough to shield notorious rulers such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein who
could be accused of war crimes.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman Jesse Helms, North Carolina Republican, has said the treaty will
be "dead on arrival" if the president ever submits it for Senate ratification.
Mr. Scheffer said that U.S. officials
have not yet decided whether to simply ignore the court, or actively work
against it. "We're not going to make that decision until the end of next
December."
L.A. Inches Closer to Bullet Ban
Boys Gathered Signatures for Proposal
Dec. 3, 1999
By Randy Dotinga
City Councilman Mike Hernandez
LOS ANGELES (APBnews.com) -- A proposal to ban the sale of bullets
in the city is gaining momentum, but some major legal and political hurdles
remain.
On Tuesday, the city's police commission recommended the city
approve an ammunition ban with limited exceptions. A three-member council
committee will later discuss the proposal and decide whether to send it
to the full 15-member council.
If passed, Los Angeles would join Chicago on the short list
of major cities that forbids the sale of bullets.
The ban would forbid sales of live ammunition to all people
except sworn and retired police officers, who already have the right to
carry concealed weapons, said Joe Gunn, executive director of the police
commission.
Hollywood productions won't suffer
Blanks could still be purchased, allowing the entertainment
industry to continue buying bullets for use in television and movie productions.
Hollywood itself is part of the city of Los Angeles.
Target ranges would be allowed to continue operating but would
be forced to install metal detectors to prevent customers from leaving
with bullets, Gunn said.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez proposed the ban
after hearing from 12-year-old fraternal twin boys who gathered 9,000 signatures
in favor of outlawing ammunition. Seven thousand signatures came from children
and 2,000 from adults, said Fred Zermeno, a spokesman for Hernandez.
'It just took off'
The boys, from the west side of Los Angeles, began pushing for
changes in the law after the shooting death of Ennis Cosby, the son of
comedian Bill Cosby, and several other shooting incidents.
"They gave letters to all the council members, and Hernandez
appreciated what they were doing," Zermeno said. "He began a crusade to
help them come to City Council meetings, and it just took off."
The police commission voted 3-2 to support the bullet ban. "Those
who supported it said they don't know whether this is going to totally
eliminate violence against children or anyone else, but it represented
to them a start in the direction they wanted to go," Gunn said. "The two
that were opposed objected to the infringement on personal rights."
Prominent people back plan
The ammunition ban has prominent supporters including Los Angeles
Police Chief Bernard Parks and Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles County district
attorney. On the other side, gun shop owners and gun control opponents
are fighting the ban.
Officials at the National Rifle Association's headquarters in
Virginia were at meetings today and could not be reached for comment.
City officials in Los Angeles have pointed to Chicago as an
example of a city with a successful ammunition ban. Sales of handgun ammunition
have been banned in Chicago since 1994, and strict restrictions on sales
of firearms went into effect in 1982.
