POLITICS: Anti-Globalisation Activists Bitter About Police Attack

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

CANCUN, Mexico, Mar 1 2001 (IPS) - Cancun Wednesday was its customary tranquil self, with US tourists strolling along the tree-line boulevard of the hotel zone in shorts and T-shirts, enjoying the sun and the breeze blowing in from the nearby aquamarine waters of the Caribbean.

However, the return to calmness does little to soothe Araceli Dominguez’s anger at what she calls “police brutality”. Dominguez was among some 200 anti-globalisation activists who were attacked by baton-wielding police officers, while on a protest march Tuesday afternoon.

“We had no intention of pushing our way beyond the police barricades,” said Dominguez, in reference to the first of many police roadblocks that had been set up along the boulevard leading to the swanky hotel where business and political leaders were meeting at the World Economic Forum (WEF).

What is more, revealed Dominguez, after some of the protestors argued with the police about “our rights to free expression and rights to free movement, we decided to retreat to Parque Las Palapas.” That park in the centre of the city was where the anti-globalisation activists had conducted an Alternative Social Forum, from Feb. 26 to 27, which ran concurrently with the WEF meeting.

It was then, she affirmed, that the police began “beating, kicking and dragging” the protestors. “Such violence was uncalled for.”

Her view of Tuesday’s confrontation is reflected in the reports by the local media, which had headlines on Wednesday that screamed “Brutality” and “Violence Arrives” over photos of bloodied faces of demonstrators.

According to one report, after a three-hour stand-off, “police charged through the barricades, chasing the protestors”. Another noted how the police had “beat and kicked” the protestors. In one account, a policeman was quoted as shouting, “Come back, dogs!”

But the media on the scene to cover this confrontation were not spared either. Among the victims was Raul Guemez Garcia, 20, a photographer for a ‘Poe Esto!’, a local tabloid, who was hit on the head. “Someone gave the order to hit everyone who was running,” Garcia told IPS.

What is more, he pointed out, the police attacked him despite his wearing a photographer’s jacket with the word “Press” on it and his having a camera too. “When I said that I was a journalist, the policeman said, ‘I don’t care’,” revealed Garcia, his head still bandaged.

For Hilda Salazar, of a Mexico City-based NGO monitoring free- trade issues, Tuesday’s violence, which resulted in close to 30 people being injured and 56 arrests, has sullied the image of Mexico being painted by President Vicente Fox, as a country where “democracy is alive and rights are protected”.

It is “the first time” since Fox took over as head of government last December that “violence has been perpetrated openly against the people”, Salazar said. “It has been demonstrated that oppression is possible.”

However, Salazar, who came to Cancun to participate in the alternative forum, is among those who are reluctant to place all the blame on the Fox administration, given that this city and the state, Quintana Roo, are governed by members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (known by its Spanish acronym PRI), whose candidate Fox defeated at last year’s presidential elections.

Such reluctance is understandable in the face of what eyewitness, victims and newspaper reports say: That members of the local police force took a lead roll in attacking the anti-globalisation activists and they were assisted by the state police. However, the federal police, sent to Cancun to beef- up security for the WEF, were barely involved.

Magaly Achach, Cancun’s mayor, has gone on the offensive, trying to deflect charges that the order to attack the demonstrators was made by the city government. She was quoted in newspapers Wednesday as saying that “there was no reason for such aggression” and that an “inquiry will be conducted” to reveal who gave the orders to attack.

Backing her up is state governor Joaquin Hendricks Diaz. He told reporters late Wednesday that the city government’s investigation is “a must” and it is backed by the state. “I guarantee justice will be done,” he stressed.

For Hector de la Cueva, however, it does not matter what the city, state and federal governments have to say about the incident.

“For us, the message is clear: that governments will defend the neo-liberal economic policies of the WEF with anything, with violence if they have to,” said de la Cueva, executive secretary of the Continental Social Alliance, an NGO that organised the alternative forum.

Jorge Villarreal concurs, pointing to the wounds he sustained during the police attacks as evidence. “I am sad that they attacked us, denying our rights to move freely and to express our opposition to globalisation,” he said.. The 20-year-old student of political science was set upon by “five or six policemen”, and he suffered bruises to his body.