U.S. Declares War on Dissent in Miami

international | anti-capitalism | feature Thursday November 27, 2003 01:20 by imc editorial Group

United Steelworkers to raise Miami police behaviour in U.S. Congress

As George Bush was being greeted by hundreds of thousands of protestors in London, his little brother Jeb, governor of Florida, was demonstrating how to deal with dissent, Bush-style. The occasion was the FTAA summit in Miami. Tens of thousands of trade unionists and anti-capitalists came from all over the Americas to protest against this inequitable attempt to establish a 'free' trade area of the Americas. They were met with an unprecedented level of repression. Indymedia established a dedicated FTAA server and infoshop.org also created a special site to cover the protests. They provide a huge number of personal accounts of the violent assault on the right to protest that they encountered in Miami.

Several excellent reports are available elsewhere on the net, including DemocracyNow!'s Jeremy Scahill report on the "embedding" of journalists and assaults on independent journalists and Naomi Klein's description of the new "Miami model" of reportage as the war comes home.

The severity of the repression, including allegations of torture and sexual assaults in prisons, has provoked a backlash from organised labour. The one positive note is the increased solidarity between the more radical unions and the black bloc.

ORIGINAL NEWSWIRE STORY FROM PHUGHEDD(sic) FOLLOWS

Now that the teargas has settled, and the evidence of police violence (yet again) mounts, calls are being made for the removal of police commissioner Richard Timoney for his supervision on the assaults on protestors against the FTAA in Miami. One union has decided to raise the issue in the US congress.

Several excellent reports are available which several explicit and detailed objections to the conduct of the police.

DemocracyNow!'s Jeremy Scahill reported that the "embedding" of journalists has been imported from Iraq to the police in Miami and that severe assaults were perpetrated on anyone the police felt like. His article details the assaults upon him and another DN! reporter including a personal encounter with police chief Timoney:
http://www.counterpunch.org/scahill11242003.html

Naomi Klein in the Guardian describes this new "Miami model" of embedded journalists and paramilitary police as being an example of the "war coming home" and ends with a sinister quote about the upcoming Republican National Convention (Timoney's first blooding occurred at the RNC in 2000)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1093185,00.html

Democracy Now! of Nov 26th reports that the United Steelworkers are attempting to have the issue of the funding for this "policing" raised in congress (it was part of the $87 billion supposedly earmarked for Iraq) and also contains interviews with a United Steelworkers representative (an veteran of the Navy) who condemns the treatment of the protestors including the diversion of union members to a police trap, an interview with a "senior" who relates how his group of 13 buses of seniors had an agreement with the police that they'd be given safe passage. This was reneged on, they walked the last few miles and then were led into a police trap.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/26/1538221

Moral of the story: don't trust the police -- they lie when it suits them.

SF-indymedia claims several serious sexual assaults have occured to the arrested protestors. I really hope this is just cop black-ops trying to instil fear in people:
http://sf.indymedia.org/features/wto/

However, on a positive note, the solidarity between awakened elements of the unions and the black bloc is strengthening:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/11/1661487.php