BY OWEN RICHARDS
SYDNEY — A dynamic and colourful gathering of around 1000 activists at Town Hall on November 13 kicked off three days of protest against the mini-ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with a march demanding "free movement of people".
Organised by the Free Movement of People Collective, the rally aimed to raise refugees' rights as part of the anti-WTO protests.
At Town Hall Square, anti-corporate activist Richard Bailey drew the links between the WTO and the plight of refugees. The WTO promotes "free trade", he said, but the word free "has a different definition to the corporate elites and trade ministers than it does in the dictionary". For them, the word means the right to trade free from the restrictions of environmental legislation, health protections, food security, services — and ultimately, democracy. Freedom of movement for refugees is definitely not a part of their agenda.
Susanna Rivas, of the Colombian Solidarity Committee, denounced the hypocrisy of First World governments turning away refugees while they simultaneously cause the problems that force refugees to flee. The United States financial and military support for the Colombian governments' dirty war on the workers and peasants of Colombia — "Plan Colombia" — is a prime example of this hypocrisy, she said.
Defying the government ban on any street march during the WTO, imposed by NSW police minister Mick Costa, the protest spilled out onto George Street in a chorus of chants, songs and drums amid a sea of colourful flags.
The most popular chant, "No borders! No nations! No deportations!", linked freedom of movement for refugees to opposition to the corporate exploitation of the world that is pushed by the WTO. Anti-war chants were also popular, with protesters recognising that the WTO and the War on Terror are aspects of the war on the Third World.
Arriving at the shiny glass-panelled offices of the new Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA), the protest concluded with an "open mike" for activists to voice their disgust at the federal governments' racist refugee policies. Protesters heard from speakers, chanted and danced in the grassed forecourt of the DIMIA offices, as a line of tactical response group cops "guarded" the building.
From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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