Battle of Seattle

The Battle of Seattle consisted of a series of marches, direct actions, protests, and “black bloc” tactics carried out from November 28 through December 3, 1999, in a successful effort to disrupt the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference. Comprising a broad and diffuse coalition of the American Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) and other labor unions, student groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Global Exchange and Oxfam, Earth First!ers, Jubilee 2000, media activists, international farmers and industrial workers, the Ruckus Society, groups allied with the Direct Action Network (DAN), anarchists, and others, the Battle of Seattle is often referred to as “the coming-out party” of the anti-neoliberal-globalization movement.

The Battle of Seattle was one of the first major international mobilizations to be coordinated via the Internet. It was reported online with streaming audio and video clips by the Seattle Independent Media Center. While 400,000 people took part in a virtual sit-in of the WTO website organized by the Electrohippies, the ground war was a loose populist assemblage of more than 40,000 protestors (some estimates are as high as 60,000) opposing everything from specific WTO policies to free trade and neoliberal paternalism to the human rights failures of globalization. Replete with NGO-sponsored debates, lectures, and various teach-ins throughout the week, the battle is most notable for the events of N30 (code for November 30, 1999)—the AFL-CIO People's Rally and March and the “Shut down the WTO-Mass Nonviolent Direct Action” blockade—and the resulting escalation of police force.

By the morning of N30, an estimated 10,000 protestors, including DAN-organized affinity groups, surrounded the Paramount Theatre and Convention Center—the location of many WTO functions. Through a variety of solidarity tactics, such as street theater, sit-ins, chaining affinity groups together, and activists locking themselves to metal pipes in strategic locations, the protestors prevented the opening ceremony from taking place. In response to this civil disobedience, the police utilized close-range pepper sprays, tear gas grenades, and rubber bullets in their efforts to disperse the crowd; some protestors responded in kind by throwing sticks and water bottles. At the same time, the permitted AFL-CIO [Page 222]People's Rally and March of over 25,000 Teamsters, Longshoremen, and environmental activists began at Memorial Stadium. As the march gradually moved downtown toward the Convention Center, a few hundred anarchists used targeted black bloc property destruction tactics against Starbucks, Nike, Nordstrom, and other stores, and a few protestors burned trashcans and broke store windows. By midday, Seattle's central business district was clogged with marchers from the People's Rally, DAN blockaders, and other dissenters; consequently, several WTO events were cancelled. The mayor of Seattle, looking to quell the massive protests in anticipation of President Clinton's arrival the following day and finally running out of riot control chemicals, declared a 7 P.M. to 7 A.M. curfew in the area.

The following day, December 1, 1999, saw the illegalization of gas masks and the creation of a 50-block “no protest zone” in the central business district; moreover, the Seattle police were joined that morning by members of the Washington National Guard and the U.S. military. More mass dissentions and acts of civil disobedience, some vandalism, and curfew violations resulted in reprisals by the police forces and the eventual arrest of more than 500 people on December 1 alone. On December 2 and 3, thousands of demonstrators staged sit-ins outside the Seattle Police Department to protest what was seen by many as the department's brutal tactics against peaceful protestors. Finally, December 3 ended with U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and WTO Director-General Michael Moore announcing the suspension of the WTO Ministerial Conference in response to both the street actions and disagreements between the various delegations.

...