8th September: And so it begins

8 September 2003

The great and the good are arriving in Cancun. The first thing you notice is the heat - it's hot. But the military gun ships in the bay are a close second. Protecting or provoking? Time will tell.

Barriers outside Subway

The numbers of military personnel is growing and, with it, the tension. Barriers are multiplying like mushrooms around the WTO convention centre and across "Zona Hotelera".

The honeymooners are confused. The protesters are meeting and organising. The local press has done its best to make the locals afraid. Although not helpful, it's clear something is afoot, and it's big. And quite possibly mean.

EU Commissioner Lamy - representing one of the main power blocks (Europe) - sent out his "Everything you need to know about Cancun" (both pages) a few days ago.

I will be there to defend our interests and our vision of globalisation.

Commissioner Lamy on the WTO meeting

An alternative story of globalisation

Beyond the Zona, beyond the barriers, in fact well beyond where the paved road ends is the old port of Juarez.

This was a happy tourist and fishing area 20 years or so ago before Cancun was created by the big hotels. In the crumbling ruins of a cement house and tiny restaurant Guadalupe lives with her family, without water and, not surprisingly, without customers.

Guadalupe's bulldozed home

The property developer who bought up the deserted land around her wants her out so he can put up another big hotel. She believes he "discourages" water even being delivered by truck, and that he is responsible for sending in the bulldozers. She's too nervous to have her photo taken.

I don't know much about what is happening over there, but for so long so many people have been coming and saying they will help the poor people, but the poor people are still standing here with their arms folded and nothing changes

Guadalupe's thoughts on globalisation

Clearly Guadalupe's "vision of globalisation" is somewhat different to Commissioner Lamy's.

Still, everyone does agree that in fact couldn't have picked a better place to hold this meeting. There's a McDonald's (and a Subway and a Domino's and an Avis car hire...) literally every few hundred yards.

As an example of how rapid, unsustainable "progress" can destroy a beautiful and potentially prosperous area, Cancun is hard to beat.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. It is an international day of action and the first day of the Ministerial itself.

The mosquitos - whose painful blood-sucking bites are plaguing us - may yet have the last word. And that might be quite fitting.

All the best,

Eve

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