How accurate is Battle in Seattle?
A journalist and former Seattle City Council member who led the council's investigation into the WTO riots faults the film for claiming too much for the protesters. More disturbing was the picture of dreamy nonchalance in planning that the investigation revealed about City Hall and Seattle Police.
Battle in Seattle, now in theaters, is a dandy movie, but it overstates the impact of the World Trade Organization protests of 1999. World trade talks are in trouble but not because of those festivities in Seattle streets. It is unmistakable that WTO got a sobering message, but the portrait director Stuart Townsend paints of a successful uprising against globalism is oversimplified.
First of all, there were no winners. True, the Seattle demonstrators showed the potency and breadth of opposition to free trade and the concept of globalization and delivered a stinging blow to President Bill Clinton's hopes for worldwide trade liberalization. The violence dashed hopes that a "Seattle Round" of global talks would be launched. But it is disingenuous to think the disturbances curbed the activities of the WTO. The 144 member nations continue to meet — behind barbed wire and in inaccessible countries like Doha — and continue to negotiate.
The WTO today is much diminished in clout, but not because of the demonstrations. Instead, negotiations have grown so ponderous that side deals — regional and bilateral treaties — have become the rule. The "Doha Round" of talks is essentially dead. For big countries, like the U.S. or Japan, or for groups of nations like the European Union, it's more advantageous to bargain one-on-one with trading partners rather than struggling for global rules. In the WTO, the vote of Togo or Sri Lanka has the same weight as that of the U.S. — a recipe for paralysis.
The 1999 events of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle brought changes in security arrangements for international meetings, but that's a dubious gain. At WTO meetings in Doha and Marrakech, barbed wire kept protestors a mile from the deliberations. Demonstrators were talking to each other, not the world.
Nevertheless, the film about the battle of Seattle paints a harrowing, and largely accurate, picture of the chaos in the Seattle streets. The awful effects of tear gas, clumsy arrests, and jail procedures can't be denied. The WTO conflict injured the city and its reputation and created serious and legitimate doubts about our dedication to protecting speech and assembly. The battle left a residue of anger and mistrust that took years to disperse. That's no victory for anyone. On the positive side, there have been substantial (if painfully slow) improvements in police accountability. In all, Seattle paid a high price.
How did it happen? Seattle has long yearned to be a world class international port, and landing the WTO promised to raise our international profile. Then-Mayor Paul Schell boosted the event relentlessly but was largely absent from security planning. Police Chief Norm Stamper handed off planning to a deputy chief and disappeared. The result was a dreamy nonchalance — what could go wrong?
The Washington Council on International Trade, a non-profit consortium of trade-dependent businesses and public agencies in the area, issued an invitation promising $9,237,000 for costs of security, transportation, social events, etc. They had apparently not consulted their membership. Elected officials who were members of the host committee said they made no such commitment.
After the Battle, I headed a City Council committee that oversaw a nine-month investigation, superbly led by staff director Alec Fisken. We found that the Schell administration ignored repeated and clear signals of the potential for trouble. A WTO official, Jacques Chaubert, briefed Seattle police about 1998 demonstrations in Geneva, where 4,000 demonstrators did extensive damage. Chaubert described "terrible problems ... violent demonstrations" and an incident in which a delegate's car was set on fire. Trade Development Alliance President Bill Stafford supplied a French documentary about the Geneva confrontation to the Seattle Police Department. Newspapers in Eugene, Ore., gave detailed coverage of anarchist plans to disrupt the summit, and the intent of many groups to block downtown streets was widely known. Nonetheless, SPD Assistant Chief Ed Joiner downplayed the problem, and one of our interviewees said police told the WTO official, "Well, we've dealt with demonstrations before."
The film gets another thing right about the demonstrations. Demonstrators expected to be arrested for symbolic acts like blocking streets and said so in advance. But police numbers were completely inadequate for what happened. Faced with the necessity to clear the streets, cops used tear gas. Schell, trying to display his commitment to free speech, limited police resources. But his attempt to appear welcoming worked against, not for, robust speech. If there had been more resources, mass arrests would have eliminated the need for teargas.
By the way, the battle cost the city $9 million. Seattle had hosted APEC a year earlier and did a pretty good job of getting federal reimbursement for security costs. The City Council pestered Schell and his aide, Cliff Traisman, to get State Department or host organization financial support for security. Council member Martha Choe asked for a clear memorandum of understanding about who picked up the security bills. Traisman said "we never implemented the suggestion." That was to cost the city dearly.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism by becoming a member of Crosscut.com today!
Comments:
Posted Wed, Oct 1, 9:59 a.m. inappropriate
battle for seattle: It took the city council 2 years to finally have a meeting about the martial law that acured during WTO. Most people there at the meeting were there for the anti-fascists, anti-pig forum. There were no renters, land owners, or business owners from Capitol Hill there that knew that this meeting was taking place. Capitol Hill had 4 days and 3 nights of horror during this time.
During WTO a friend of mine was caught in the illegal experimental military gas that was released downtown when she was at work. Her liver started to go out right afterwards. Her doctor is still monitoring her.
We employees at Amazon were wondering if it was our orange tags that we wore to work that the police were eyeing is the reason we weren't blatantly attacked by the police unlike the 2 city council members during WTO.
As for the latter adventures of more WTO meeting globally my friends said they wouldn't go any more because once the authorities saw the Battle for
Seattle that gave them the green light to murder in Italy. Where they went to the following year, but no more after what they saw.
Most people I knew then on Capitol Hill said they will never look at the police again the same. It took 5 days for the smell of tear gas to leave the Hill. It took longer than that to get the sound of the few crying children on the Hill from the gas that crept threw there bedroom windows out of my head.
joy and rapture.
-biff-
Posted Wed, Oct 1, 10:01 a.m. inappropriate
Nitpick department: No disagreement with Compton's analysis, but he makes two factual errors:
1) Doha is not an "inaccessible country." It's not a country at all. It's the capital of Qatar, and served by more than two dozen international airlines.
2) Seattle did not "host APEC a year earlier." It was 1993, six years (and a diifferent mayor and Police Chief) before WTO.
Posted Wed, Oct 1, 10:26 a.m. inappropriate
A couple additional thoughts: First, those experienced with handling such demonstrations know that it is best to bring adequate numbers of police to the scene, beforehand, in order to deter the kind of later, chaotic outbreaks and police reactions that took place in Seattle. Greater shows of initial strength, without violence, help avoid later violence. Europeans have known this for many years and apparently tried to share their experience with Seattle officials.
Second, as is pointed out, the delegates to the WTO meeting had their rights severely abridged. Developing-country delegates, in particular, got no chance to be heard on an agenda they regarded as critical to their interests.
Finally, we in Seattle can be provincial and naive when it comes to things apparent to others elsewhere. The demonstrators' objectives and prospective tactics were known for many weeks ahead of the meeting. Local leaders, including the mayor and police chief, chose to regard them as flower children requiring nurture.
Free speech, always; calculated disruption and polarization, no.
Posted Wed, Oct 1, 11:29 a.m. inappropriate
RE: Ted Van Dyk comment: This is still Seattle, not Singapore or St. Paul. A little rudeness and disruption, even minor violence, is preferable to unquestioning conformity extracted at the end of a police baton.
Posted Fri, Oct 3, 4:59 p.m. inappropriate
"Even minor violence, is preferable..."
Let's see...How about a broken teeth barometer? A rioter who punches out someone or whacks them with an ax handle is allowed to take out two, but not three, teeth before police intervene?
Or should we use a blood loss volume? If the wound you inflict causes a loss of a half-pint of blood, you're good to go. More than that, and it's in the Paddy Wagon with you!
Maybe a rock rating? If you through a rock smaller than a softball, but larger than a baseball, you get a warning. Smaller than a baseball, you get a medal for your ideological purity and lack of unquestioning conformity. But larger than a softball and it's the end of a police baton for you.
Let's just call that for what it is: Baloney!
Violence of any type is never tolerable - it's self-indulgent, out-of-control, less-than-juvenile, and very criminal behavior well deserving of the end of a police baton in order to quell it.
Seattle isn't special, unique, or even thoughtful, and the 1999 WTO riots proved it on both ends of that mess.
Former Mayor Paul Schell and his top-cop, former Police Chief Norm Stamper failed to prepare - they also believed their own naive, Kumbaya-ish, flower-child assessment of the coming protests, which soon morphed into a deer-in-the-headlights terror and inability to appropriately respond.
The nihlistic anarchists and economically dumb protestors, neither of whom had a clue as to the nature of world trade and the effects of competition on everybody's job failed to show a reasoned approach to protesting, restraint in their behavior, or respect for the rights and property of local people who had no dog in the fight between the pro or anti-WTO factions.
Just another episode in how Seattle has become the biggest laughing-stock city in the United States.
I think I'll save my $9.50 and go see American Carol - twice.
The Piper