WTO talks in Cancun collapse

- | 06.09.2003 00:48 | Globalisation | London

Thousands of protestors, peasant and farmers organizations, workers, environmentalists, trade unionists and many other groups opposing the World Trade Organization, corporate globalisation and militarism from around the world and Latin America converged on Cancun, Mexico, the location for last week's WTO Summit which ran from the 10th to the 15th of September.

For Indymedia coverage and up to date information on the events and protests that took place see cancun.mediosindependientes.org and the feature in IMC-UK World Page.

Other anti-WTO protests also took place across the planet. Click here for reports and images.

Comments

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Want Comment

08.09.2003 07:09

I would like to know what everyone thinks about the money wasted to protect Apex tower last week against a protest and only 4 people showed up? Police offices that had to stand watch when then could have been helping someone else.

I would also like to know what you think about the headline in the metro Monday Sep 8 2003 page 21 £1m police operation to protect arms show?

You are ALL WASTING MONEY!
And using up emergency services that could be saving lives.

Another thing I would like to know is why I dont see anyone complaining about the tube excercise that took place on the weekend. Just remember where that technology came from?
Where the training had come from?

BTW to all the people protesting I hope that non of you are hypocates, by that I mean I hope you do support any of the companies at DSEi, so next time you get on the tube, please note who makes the underground possible, (companies like Alstom?), please note next time you use a car, ford, mercedes, saab, fiat. Next time you use a computer siemens, futjitsu. And please next time you are introuble and require a bowman helicopter? Make sure you understand what you are asking for. Defence companies do more for the UK then you think!

In my view I hope all goes well as DSEi.

I support the defence market.

Confused

Millions dead

08.09.2003 07:44

Confused,

I'm guessing you work in the 'defence' industry. Millions of people are killed by the products of the defence industry, but maybe you're right, maybe it's better not to make a fuss and waste money.

I think that the arms show should pay for the bill for the policing.

mark

We need defence

08.09.2003 10:19

Maybe you are correct, maybe I do work for the defence industry.
If all the protestors are right and they say down to the defence industry, then so be it.
But when countries decided to attack dont complain.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/07/nkorea.missile.reut/index.html

Answer this question, why are countries like america and britain so great? Its not because of money, there are countries in the world that have more money then america and the uk but not half as powerful. Their power lies within their defence capabilities. And without it they are nothing. I come from a country wich is supposed to be the flagship of democracy, and yet its so far from it.

I would like a free and fair world as much as the next person, however there is something that fuels all evil and that is greed. And before we (mankind) can remove protective measures such as that created by the defence industry and military powers one must remove greed.

And the fact that people stand up for what they believe in, I think thats great, and good luck to them. But I will sleep better at night knowing that the people out in the field protecting those things that we hold dear like democracy and freedom have the best available technology so that even in time of war they are as safe as can be.

hey just my 2c, please go ahead flame me for all you want. It seems to be the norm on indymedia?

Confused

To Confused - the supporter of DESI

08.09.2003 14:26

Maybe you do work for the 'defence' industry in which case I would start to look to your own morals rather than searching for the problems in other peoples.

Or maybe you are just having a day off from your job in Thames House if you know what I mean.

Yes there are civvy spin offs from the defence industry but you fail to consider that a lot of positive technologica developments are prevented from being used for the benefit of all mankind because they are needed for 'defence purposes'.

John

Why sell our technology overseas then?

08.09.2003 18:04

It's not the existence of a defence industry which offends us so much, it's that the countries you choose to sell weapons to don't use them for defence. Do you really think that selling weapons to Syria for example is going to increase the security of the UK?

How about the exocet missiles that sank the British troop carriers in the Falklands. Is that another example of the defence industry supporting freedom and democracy?

mark

Not really defence as such

09.09.2003 15:20

It's somewhat of a misnomer to call it a defence industry in any case. Most of the weapons manufactured are used to attack not defend and the countries that they are sold to are some of those with the worst human rights records in the world such as Israel, Turkey and China. Those people who work in the arms industry have skills and technology that could be used to benefit so many people around the world and yet these skills are used to kill and maim people throughout the world, generally in countries where people are suffering already. As for defending democracy, I think the US army have been shooting people in the streets in Iraq for daring to protest against the occupation. Some democracy. I was at the demo at DSEI today which had a brilliant atmosphere and was full of people who want a better world where people come before profit and there's no war. Sounds good to me - if you want to defend the arms trade, you're on the wrong website.
I also think DSEI should pay for it's own bloody policing. They stick an arms fair that will make millions in one of the poorest boroughs of London and expect the taxpayers to pick up the tab, how fair is that?

Sue

technology myth busting

10.09.2003 10:03

Whilst there are many examples of technologies we use today that have been 'spun-off' from
defence projects , this is not the only way that technology is developed and it would be very short sighted to think it was the best. The japanese are a great example of how technology benifits from commercial instead of millitary development , after the 2nd world war the japanese where heavily monitored by the americans and defence spending was limited.
As a result many of the leading technologists worked on developing home entertainment products instead of bombs and weapons . They now have a reputation for making some of the
most innovative and exciting applications of techology on the planet.
Another good example is the open source movement , it provides the most healthy environments for technological development with little or no contact from the military . Its lack of millitary envolvment also alows it to focus on social , political and humanitarian issues related to its work , this is something no military technology project would ever look into (beyond mere curiosity) .
I'd also like to quickly dispell another myth , whilst the internet was concieved by the millitary most of the important work was/is done by academics and mostly in the name of free speech and communication for the masses . just look at the ICANN and IETC membership if you don't belive me .
So mr defence worker , all i have left to say is must troll harder

Toodle-pip

amias

Wasting money...

10.09.2003 10:32

I find it interesting when supporters of the defence industry talk about the many great things that have come about as a result of the arms industry. We are living in a world full of scientists and clever people working on things of all descriptions, but the most massive amounts of money are invested in things that actually make the world a far worse place for millions of people. Let's take napalm as an example. Some scientist somewhere invented the stuff, went "hey, I've developed a weapon so heinous, so genuinely terrifyingly evil that can be dropped by the thousands of litres on people from a great height and will effectively melt them to the bone. I designed it to destroy forests, but what a dual-use invention! Way to go!" He was probably promoted instead of locked away, still cackling, in a dark place and the key thrown away. If this man had been Iraqi, we'd have demonised him, called him a "monster" and any number of other loaded phrases that are generally used for people regarded as "foreign".
One man's monster is another man's business partner and chief scientist, after all.

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that the world is already full of problems. Poverty, drought, famine, disease, all problems that are not going away, problems that have afflicted the human race for hundreds of years and are actually getting worse.
And yet, as a human race, are we not supposed to be evolving into something more intelligent? Billions and billions of dollars/pounds/pick a currency are spent every single year on guns, bombs and DU, sums that could be spent paying thousands of scientists who are trying to find cures for cancer, AIDS, malaria. Every single person on this planet could have clean drinking water if that money was not being spent on inventing ever-more ingenious ways of slaughtering one another.
Are the human race the stupidest species on the planet? It seems that way.

Instead of doing useful things, we "liberate" the Iraqi people by dropping hundreds of tons of DU on them, condemning millions of people to ever weirder and incurable cancers for the rest of their lives, and their children's and grandchildren's lives.
They would never have needed liberating if we hadn't armed, supported and generally made Saddam Hussein's life very easy indeed for decades. It wouldn't be a surprise if the gas used on the Kurds in Halabja bore a "Made in Porton Down" sticker in the cannisters.

But of course, we're defending democracy and freedom...by curtailing the democracy and freedom of an entire nation. We were only after one guy, after all. That's what the war was supposed to be all about. And where is he now? Where's Osama too, for that matter?

If more money was spent on solving the world's problems and less on arms, maybe we'd have less social conflict and a saner world. Most people who are happy, well-fed and healthy generally don't feel the urge to kill one another in horrible ways, or is that just the view of a naive optimist?

Princess Leia

Obviously Really Confused

11.09.2003 11:07

Confused?

"We have 50 percent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 per cent of its population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period.. is to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispence with all sentimentaility.. we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation" Gerorge Kennan, US strategic planner, 1948

The US/UK are the greedy nations, the undemocratic nations, the original terrorist states. They proliferate Weapons of Mass Destruction. They have killed millions of innocent people around the world in many conflicts.

The Reds under the beds style paranoia that sweeps thru our media encourages people like you to hold the view that its Us against Them and we'd better have the right weapons for the job. Jeez.

http://www.theonion.com/3935/top_story.html

Mark B

accomplice to murder

13.09.2003 11:45

Confused, you have a lot of nerve to talk about saving lives since the 'defence' (sic)industry is based around profiteering out of murder in a world run by gangsters ( the business / political class )and their media whores. I could recommend yopu start off by reading Mark Curtis' 'Web of Deceit' re Britain's foreign policy to begin with. Then you might want to take a objective look at the history of capitalism ( aka. the history of organised crime ). Youy may find that the wealth of this country is due to a history of aggression - defence my arse;-)

yes this is very emotive , I'm afraid I'm a little bored of these people's 'ignorance'. You'd have to work at it.

angry at the english cowards

Arms

13.09.2003 18:50

Erm - has anyone of you ever sat down and thought - 'hmm, the 20th century the most technologically progressive century in history, also the most bloody'

Both World War's and the Cold war,periods of hostility and intense focus on the defense industry - the Arm's race between the US and soviet Russia led to all the technology that we benefit from now in all areas, global communications, mass production etc. So as grissly as it is to sometimes admit. we owe our own bloody history, and that of the arms industry more then you think.

And in response to the west being the evils to end all evils. Let us say that our arms industry was, what? stopped completely - or just refocussed its efforts entirely into 'defensive' technology and stopped selling abroad. The rest of the world wouldn't suddenly become all peacefull, they would begin to develop their own weapons to fight amoung theirselves (us even?), and as "confused" said near the start, the West is only as powerful as it is, beacuse of its millitary - without it we have no power to impose our values on anyone else. No more Democracy, no more human rights and no more liberalism. And should another race take the lead in arms technology - then what?

Well then they would start imposing there beliefs on us. And those will not be your democracy and human rights you cherish so much.

As evil as the west is, you are all fighting for western values. And as the arms industry is the sole safeguard of western power in the world, you should think twice before removing it.

karic