By Manny Fernandez and Monte Reel
Washington PostSeptember 30, 2002
A series of anti-globalization protests in Washington ended yesterday with a loud but peaceful march against a rush to war with Iraq, a mild-mannered coda to scattered street demonstrations focused on this weekend's meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
After three days of actions that failed to produce the numbers and disruptions protesters had predicted, many in the anti-globalization movement were examining how to do things bigger, better and bolder. Activists offered a host of explanations for the size of the crowds and all the actions that had failed to transpire, including a shutdown of the city, a blockade of the meetings to prevent delegates from leaving Saturday evening and the arrival of the biggest anti-globalization crowds in Washington since the demonstrations of April 2000.
Some organizers said police critically misjudged the size of the crowd in a Saturday march from the Washington Monument grounds to Farragut Square. Police said there were 3,000 to 5,000 people; organizers said there were 15,000 to 20,000, although the crowd took up fewer blocks and was less densely packed than in 2000. Others said an aggressive police response and hundreds of arrests kept large numbers away. Still others said that the series of separately organized demonstrations was a success on many fronts and that in the post-Sept. 11 age of homeland security, it was a victory for people to assemble by the thousands to voice their dissent.
"Getting together and talking freely is now considered subversive," said Jason Ford, a Vermont activist who joined the demonstrations. "But that could be one connecting issue -- the democratic right to just assemble is being lost."
Yesterday afternoon, Ford was one of a couple of hundred protesters sitting in Farragut Square debating the future of such demonstrations. At the People's Assemblies, a kind of town-hall meeting, people sat in small circles and discussed the challenges of the movement, which first gained notoriety in 1999 in Seattle when protesters shut down World Trade Organization events.
Some in the park said that to help boost their numbers in the future, they should strengthen ties with student and labor groups. When protesters shut down the Seattle meetings, they did so with substantial help from unions. Such a presence wasn't in evidence at the major demonstrations Friday and Saturday, although the AFL-CIO labor federation conducted a workers' rights forum and signed a joint letter to the IMF and World Bank demanding reform.
"One of the challenges is making good, strong links with the labor movement," said Brendan O'Neill of Vermont, who sat on the grass with about 15 others. "It's huge in this country, and we need to try to be better connected with that."
A short walk away in Foggy Bottom, World Bank and IMF delegates attended their annual meetings without incident at the institutions' headquarters. On nearby I Street NW, D.C. police officers watched football on televisions inside white vans, and at least one top financier in town for the sessions marveled at the lack of disruption. "The streets have been clear and empty," said German banker Klaus-Peter Mueller. "You never had as much convenience getting anywhere in Washington."
The heads of the IMF and World Bank, Horst Koehler and James D. Wolfensohn, respectively, thanked the federal and D.C. governments and all the security personnel. Said Wolfensohn: "I want to thank the U.S. authorities, the District of Columbia authorities and the people of Washington for putting up with us."
Activists voiced irritation with questions about turnout and said any attempt to equate a low turnout with the end of the movement is wishful thinking. Social movements seeking fundamental change in the way corporations and governments conduct their business, they argued, could not be judged on crowd size and street blockades, although they had promised both in advance of the weekend.
"This movement has never been about tactics. It's never been about blocking a specific street corner," said Patrick Reinsborough, 30, who lives in San Francisco and arrived in the District in mid-August to help organize events Saturday and yesterday for the Mobilization for Global Justice. "This movement is about a clash of ideas. It's about life versus greed."
Many activists said the large-scale arrests Friday had a chilling effect on demonstrators. D.C. police arrested 649 in downtown demonstrations, including dozens at Vermont Avenue and K Street NW, where two Citibank windows were broken, and dozens more at Pershing Park. Protesters were prevented from leaving the park for about two hours and then arrested, a move activists said violated their First Amendment rights but police said was justified because activists blocked streets earlier in the day.
"If the police are saying that they're no longer going to play by any set of rules, as far as when and where you're going to be arrested . . . there's a lot of people who don't want to get anywhere near that," said organizer Stephen Kretzmann, 38, of the District.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said yesterday that he was happy with the way his department handled the protests, adding that "a lot of the wind was taken out of their sails Friday," when police made the mass arrests.
When the 20,000 protesters expected Saturday failed to materialize, D.C. authorities began sending home 650 of the 1,700 officers brought in from across the country. Ramsey said he might not need out-of-town officers to handle future anti-globalization demonstrations. "There's just no justification for it with the numbers these people have been getting," he said.
Only a handful of arrests took place Saturday. D.C. police said they arrested four people about 7 p.m. after at least one explosive device, nails and smoke bombs were found in their possession near 20th and K streets NW. Police said the explosive device was in a coffee can. Ramsey said it was similar to an M-80 firecracker. The two men and two women are scheduled to be arraigned today.
U.S. Park Police also arrested one man Saturday for vandalizing a statue. Another man appeared to be detained after a scuffle between police and protesters, but D.C. police said there was no record of an additional arrest. No arrests were reported yesterday, and police said all but the four charged in the explosives case had been released.
The weekend's actions ended yesterday with about 1,000 rallying in Dupont Circle against war in Iraq and marching a little after 3 p.m. up Massachusetts Avenue NW to the vice president's home behind a banner reading: "Axis of Oil, Stop Beating Drums of War." Traffic on Massachusetts Avenue NW backed up during the march, and cars from a nearby festival added to delays on Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues as protesters dispersed.
Demonstrators denounced the talk of war against Iraq as a power grab by the United States for oil. They also expressed disappointment at the small numbers. They predicted much larger numbers for an antiwar demonstration Oct. 26.
One suggested that the antiwar movement might play a role in energizing the anti-globalization movement. Joshua Brown, 28, of Baltimore said dissenters must try to get their message across that the free-market forces of globalization and the policies of the IMF and World Bank create conflicts that inevitably lead to war.
Aaron Green, 31, a University of Maryland medical student, said the movement against IMF and World Bank policies may have lost steam but is not going away. Green said the economic inequities would probably have to become worse and more obvious to the American mainstream before the movement caught on.
He said, "I don't think the typical person who sees the world economy in terms of all the stuff they can buy at Wal-Mart will realize how our current access to the flow of large numbers of cheap goods is coming at the expense of suffering of real people."
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