Bal Harbour, Fla.
Last November, trade ministers met behind high fences and under unprecedented security to move forward negotiations towards the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a plan to create a Hemisphere-wide free trade zone by 2005. President Bush is pushing for an FTAA based on the model of the failed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - a trade agreement that has expanded our trade deficit, destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S., and failed to alleviate poverty or raise wages in Mexico.
The FTAA will only lead to more lost jobs, more unchecked violations of workers' rights, and continued poverty and inequality in our hemisphere. Tens of thousands of union members, retirees, students, environmentalists, farmers, people of faith, community groups and global justice activists from all over the hemisphere marched peacefully in protest of the unfair trade deal on November 20, 2003 in the streets of downtown Miami. Protestors were united in their calls to stop the FTAA and to create a new set of trade rules that will create good jobs, protect workers' rights, and stimulate sustainable and equitable development.
Rather than defend the FTAA on its merits, the Bush Administration and other FTAA promoters decided to defend it with brute force.
During the FTAA week, protestors were subjected to an unprecedented show of intimidation, harassment and abuse at the direction of top Miami police officials. Fundamental civil liberties were trampled, and public safety was put at risk, in order to send a clear political message: peaceful protest against the FTAA is not welcome in Miami, Florida.
When police used similar tactics of violence and intimidation to silence civil rights activists forty years ago, it disgraced our nation in the eyes of the world. The gross injustices committed against peaceful civil rights protestors only highlighted the fundamental justice and bravery of their cause. In Miami, top police officials reverted to some of the same shameful methods that we fought to put an end to in our country a generation ago.
Top Miami police officials did everything they could to silence union members, retirees, and members of the public who wanted to speak out against the FTAA. They convinced the City of Miami to pass an ordinance limiting free speech just a week before the FTAA Ministerial began - the ordinance has since been criticized by a Federal Court, and the city has promised to repeal it now that the FTAA protests are over.
During the day of the permitted rally and march against the FTAA, police leadership deployed thousands of cops, many in full riot gear, with an array of helicopters, weapons and water cannons outside the amphitheater where the FTAA rally was to take place. Four out of five union and retiree buses were never allowed to reach the site of the march and rally, despite promises to the contrary from top police officials. Police authorities prevented thousands of peaceful protestors from entering the amphitheater where the FTAA rally was occurring, and some of those trying to enter were thrown to the ground with weapons to their heads, without cause or warning. Protestors were not allowed to reach signs carrying anti-FTAA messages, and the permitted march route was cut short precisely where it came closest to being within sight and sound of the trade ministers.
Despite this crackdown, tens of thousands marched peacefully against the FTAA. It was then, after the march, when the forces of repression were unleashed. Marchers were advanced on without warning or opportunity to disperse. Retirees, workers and community allies were shot at with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. Hundreds of individuals were subjected to excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, trumped up arrest, and long hours in jail. One pro-FTAA business man attempting to videotape the demonstration was permanently disfigured by a rubber bullet shot at his face, while many other peaceful protestors were also severely injured.
The Miami Police Department and dozens of other security agencies supposedly under its control spent $23.9 million in taxpayer dollars (including $8.5 million in federal funds approved as part of increased spending on the war in Iraq) on "security" for the FTAA Ministerial. Department leadership continues to praise its own performance in Miami, claiming their tactics were successful in preventing the kind of property destruction that occurred at the WTO Ministerial in Seattle in 1999 (which totaled $3 million). Governor Jeb Bush hailed the Miami Police Department's leadership, stating that they put on a "good show" at the FTAA Ministerial. The Miami Chamber of Commerce even gave an award to Miami Police Chief Timoney for his performance. Some are calling the repression witnessed during the FTAA Ministerial the "Miami model."
The Miami model calls for authorities to foment irrational fears about peaceful political protest in order to legitimize suppression of our rights. This climate of panic enables top police officials to harass and intimidate protestors and sympathetic members of the public through profiling, random stops, and pre-emptive arrests; to neutralize protestors by isolating them from the public and shielding their intended political audience from them; and to punish protestors through unwarranted and indiscriminate use of force, mass arrests, and mistreatment in jail. These tactics are designed to discourage ordinary Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly. People in America should not have to fear violent attacks funded by their own tax dollars when they participate in peaceful and permitted demonstrations.
These tactics are part of a larger strategy of the Bush Administration to chill political dissent and stifle civil liberties here in America. Anti-Bush demonstrators are caged in "free speech zones," the FBI is using expanded powers to profile those who protest Bush's foreign policies, national security is invoked to roll back workers' rights in the public sector, and the Secretary of Education has called a teachers' union critical of Bush's policies a "terrorist organization."
While other cities are preparing for mass demonstrations later this year, and while police forces are grappling with heightened demands for security in the aftermath of September 11th, there is a real danger that the Miami model will spread. The American labor movement is committed to stopping the Miami model in its tracks, and to fighting for our civil liberties. Together with our allies in the global justice and civil liberties movements, we demand that:
• All charges against peaceful protestors in Miami must be dropped.
• Federal, state and local authorities must conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the abuses that occurred here and prosecute those responsible. So far Attorney General John Ashcroft has refused to answer calls for such an investigation.
• Taxpayer money used for security in Miami, including federal funds, must be publicly accounted for. Taxpayers should never again be forced to underwrite such blatant violations of civil liberties.
• Those responsible for the abuses must be held accountable - through the courts if necessary - and they must apologize to the victims of their abuse and repudiate the "Miami model." Police Department leadership that engineered the fiasco in Miami must be forced to resign.
• Finally, we are asking our allies in Congress and other political leaders to help us stop the "Miami model" from spreading. Our leaders must denounce what happened in Miami, and work to restore our faith in civil liberties here in America.
Over the next year, we will be working to pursue justice in the courts, in the halls of Congress, and at the polls. We will continue to speak up for civil liberties, global justice, and good jobs, without fear of repression. Together, we will ensure that such abuses never happen again in the United States of America, and that the "Miami Model" dies in Miami.