Naomi Klein comments on FTAA conference and protests in Miami

overseas tactics come home

POSTED AT 1:07 AM EST Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2003



In December, 1990, U.S. President George Bush Sr. travelled
through South America to sell the continent on a bold new
dream: "a free-trade system that links all of the Americas."
Addressing the Argentine congress, he said that the plan,
later to be named the Free-Trade Area of the Americas would
be "our hemisphere's new declaration of interdependence
..... the brilliant new dawn of a splendid new world."



Last week, Mr. Bush's two sons joined forces to try to
usher in that new world by holding the FTAA negotiations in
friendly Florida. This is the state that Governor Jeb Bush
vowed to "deliver" to his brother during the 2000 presidential
elections, even if that meant keeping many
African-Americans from exercising their right to vote. Now Jeb Bush was
vowing to hand his brother the coveted trade deal, even if
that meant keeping thousands from exercising their right to
protest.



And yet, despite the Bush brothers' best efforts, the dream
of a hemisphere united into a single free-market economy
died last week. It was killed not by demonstrators in Miami,
but by the populations of Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia,
which have let their politicians know that if they sign away
any more power to foreign multinationals, they may as well
not come home.



The Brazilians brokered a compromise that makes the
agreement a pick-and-choose affair, allowing governments to sign
on to the parts they like and refuse the ones they don't.
Washington will, of course, continue to try to bully
individual countries and groups of nations into sweeping trade
contracts on the model of the North American free-trade
agreement, but there will be no single, unified deal.



Inside the Hotel Inter-Continental, it was being called
"FTAA Lite."



Outside, we experienced something distinctly heavier: "War
Lite." In fact, the more control the U.S. trade
representatives lost at the negotiating table, the more raw power the
police exerted on the streets.



"Our goal was to drown you out," one Miami-Dade police
officer explained to me, and that's exactly what they did.
Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with extreme
force; organizations were infiltrated by undercover officers who
then used stun guns on activists; busses filled with union
members were prevented from joining permitted marches;
dozens of young faces were smashed into concrete and beaten
bloody with batons; human rights activists had guns pointed at
their heads at military-style checkpoints.



Police violence outside of trade summits is not new, but
what was striking about Miami was how divorced the security
response was from anything resembling an actual threat. From
an activist perspective, the protests were disappointingly
small and almost embarrassingly obedient, an understandable
response to weeks of police intimidation.



Listening to the incessant roar of helicopters and the
march of police boots, I couldn't shake the feeling that
something new was going on. It felt less like we were the targets
of this operation than the target practice, unwitting
extras in an elaborate military drill.



The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming
of the "war on terror." The latest tactical and propaganda
techniques honed in Iraq ? from a Hollywoodized military to
a militarized media ? have now been used on a grand scale
in a major U.S. city. "This should be a model for homeland
defence," Miami Mayor Manny Diaz proudly said of the
security operation that brought together over 40 law-enforcement
agencies, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to the
Department of Fish and Wildlife.



But in order for the Miami Model to work, the police first
had to establish a connection between legitimate activists
and dangerous terrorists. Enter Miami Police Chief John
Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist "punks" who repeatedly
classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders coming in to
terrorize and vandalize our city."



With the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became
eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating the
"war on terror." In fact, $8.5-million spent on security
during the FTAA meeting came directly out of the $87-billion
President Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month ?
a fact barely reported outside of the Miami press.



But more was borrowed from the Iraq invasion than just
money. Miami police also invited reporters to "embed" with them
in armoured vehicles and helicopters. As in Iraq, most
reporters embraced their role as pseudo-soldiers with
unsettling zeal, suiting up in ridiculous combat helmets and
brand-new camouflage flak jackets.



The resulting media coverage was the familiar wartime
combination of dramatic images and non-information. We know,
thanks to an "embed" from the Miami Herald, that Police Chief
Timoney was working so hard hunting down troublemakers that
by 3:30 on Thursday, "he had eaten only a banana and an
oatmeal cookie since 6 a.m."



Local television stations didn't cover the protests so much
as hover over them. Their helicopters showed images of
confrontations but instead of hearing the voices on the streets
? voices of demonstrators pleading with police to stop
shooting and clearly following orders to disperse ? we heard
only from senior police officials and perky news anchors
commiserating with the boys on the front line.



Meanwhile, independent journalists who dared to do their
jobs and film the police violence up close were actively
targeted. "She's not with us," one officer told another as they
grabbed Ana Nogueira, a correspondent with Pacifica Radio's
Democracy Now! who was covering a peaceful protest outside
the Miami-Dade county jail. When the police established
that Ms. Nogueira was indeed "not with us" (i.e. neither an
embedded reporter nor an undercover cop) she was hauled away
and charged.



The Miami Model of dealing with dissent reaches far beyond
a single meeting. On Sunday, the New York Times reported on
a leaked FBI bulletin revealing "a co-ordinated, nationwide
effort to collect intelligence" on the U.S. anti-war
movement. The memorandum singles out perfectly lawful protest
activities including non-violence training, videotaping of
police actions and Internet organizing.



Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil
Liberties Union, said that the document revealed that, "The
FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in
nothing more than lawful protest and dissent. The line
between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is
blurred."

We can expect much more of these tactics on the homeland
front. Just as civil liberties violations escalated when
Washington lost control over the FTAA process, so will
repression increase as the Bush crew faces the ultimate threat:
losing control over the White House.



Already, Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic
communications at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, (the operation
that gave the world the Jessica Lynch rescue), has moved to
New York to head up media operations for the Republican
National Convention. "We're looking at embedding reporters," he
told the New York Observer of his plans to use some of the
Iraq tricks during the convention. "We're looking at new
and interesting camera angles."



The war is coming home.