Geneva demo: 5000 against WTO
Saturday November 27th, 1999

       

Two columns of demonstrators, almost 2000 farmers and 3000 city dwellers from all over Switzerland met in the center of Geneva this afternoon to march on the WTO headquarters.

The farmers, who gathered in front of the United Nations building, came at the call of all of the Swiss farmers associations (small farmers of the Union des Producteurs Suisses, but also the larger union Union des Paysans Suisses and the Chambers of Agriculture). Having fought hard, but all alone against the founding of WTO, many had become discouraged, but falling prices, bankruptcies and the new menaces in Seattle brought them into town again today. Many also found some new hope in the fact that today there is a movement of resistance to WTO in cities too. Several of their speakers also referred to the passage of the 500 farmers from the South of the InterContinental Caravan as a living proof that people all over the world are facing the same problems and finding the same courage refuse the deadly logic of profit of the multinationals.

Meanwhile, city people, called by a Coordination against the Millenium Round, were gathering in the heart of the international banking district. This starting point had been chosen to point out that the international banking system is at the heart of globalisation. The profits extorted from working people all over the world are centralised in such places and transformed into the capitalists most powerful weapon against those very peoples struggles.

Demonstrators had come from Berne, Basel, Lausanne and other cities. Supporters of People's Global Action of course, but also of the ATTAC network and of some twenty other organisations and associations. The civil servants union in particular made a particular effort to mobilise, knowing that the future of public education and health services could well be endangered in Seattle.

For Geneva (only 300 000 inhabitants), this was a major demonstration, proving that the riots that had marked the last WTO summit meeting had not scared or confused the people. Young, old, children, peasants, punks, professors and just plain people marched and mixed cheerfully, while the riot police - dressed to kill as usual - waited in vain.

WTO is now recognised more and more widely as an enemy of the people. Today's meeting between peasants and city demonstrators (probably the first such junction in swiss history) was an important step to prepare the long struggle ahead.

Action Populaire Contre la Mondialisation (APCM)