13th September: Endgame

13 September 2003

Under the watchful eye of the police

The day before yesterday Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) were banned from all press briefings because they were being awkward to the poor delegates.

Yesterday we were banned from the press area altogether (although not the café just outside, where you can get a lovely Subway sandwich, a Coke and an apple in a plastic box if you're so inclined) as a result of yesterday's action with the Lamy/Zoellick masks.

Today... well this morning all "explicit consensus" ID necklaces were confiscated on sight by all security personnel at all points along the Zona Hotelera, including the one inside my camera case inside my handbag in the back of the car.

"Political propaganda" we were told, which was odd, as the phrase is a direct quote from the Doha Declaration itself.

Tonight, though, things are just plain weird. We cannot ride our bicycles. Briefings, reports, banners, pins and badges are all being confiscated. Even public buses are stopped at each checkpoint and two security force men get on and demand to see hotel card keys before the buses are allowed to pass.

Free speech anyone?

Other than that things went swimmingly. Two of us went to act as observers for a group of Koreans (who are demonstrating every day everywhere) who were corralled by the police in a hotel parking lot. They were nervous and wanted witnesses. We can do that.

Others were part of an Our World is Not for Sale banner drop off one of the Bridges over the road that get you in and out of the security cordon.

Guards were onto them in a pretty heavy handed way before they got very far, but the women started screaming, which helped. They did manage to get it dropped in the end. The banner read:

WTO kills: development, democracy, nature and farmers.

After tearing up copies of the new draft text and throwing them off the bridge, they walked calmly off chanting, "Whose bridge is it?".

Points well made I think.

The new draft agreement is, as you may have guessed, not what one would have hoped. It calls for continuation of the negotiation process on all four of the New Issues, which obviously utterly ignores what most countries have said again and again on the subject.

Friends of the Earth International signed a statement along with 11 other NGOs calling on all member countries to "honour the mandate given by the Doha Ministerial Declaration and to reject the proposed text on new issues."

There won't be much sleep for anybody tonight.

All the best,

Eve

Eve Mitchell, our Corporate Globalisation Campaigner, is sending daily updates direct from WTO Ministerial.