Violence Marks WTO Anniversary

They marched, they danced and chanted and then it got ugly in Seattle Thursday night. The commemoration of the protests that all but shut down last year's World Trade Organization meeting deteriorated into violence and arrests. But it was nowhere near as bad as last year's protests.

Police arrested 140 people, including at least one reporter, after a police captain's eye was injured by a thrown object. Other officers reported protesters throwing rocks and bottles, as well as carrying bottles of gasoline.

The disturbances, involving about 200 protesters occurred after a day of peaceful demonstrations by some 2,000 people and, according to police, $50 in damage. They were hailed by organizers as a wild success.

Last year, there were 50,000 demonstrators. A total of 630 of them were arrested, and the damage totaled $3 million.

"Everything was fine up until about 8 o'clock," said Randy Trefethern, a legal observer of the protests for the National Lawyers Guild. He spoke early Friday morning by telephone from a King County jail cell.

He contended that police arrested a protester rolling a cigarette, mistaking it for a marijuana joint, "and that set the crowd off. Things became very tense after that."

Reporter Tim Haeck of KIRO-AM in Seattle reports the police had the upper hand and corralled the demonstrators on a downtown street.

"They pushed us down the street and ultimately blocked us in," said Legrand Jones, also a legal observer arrested late Thursday. "They ordered us to disperse, but there was nowhere for us to disperse."

Five of those who were arrested were being held on felony charges, and 10 of those in custody were juveniles, police officer Clem Benton said.

At a Friday morning news conference, police displayed several weapons they said were seized from demonstrators, including a number of knives, a pellet gun that closely resembled a standard revolver and a placard mounted on a baseball bat.

Gene Johnson, an Associated Press reporter arrested with the protesters, said a police lieutenant ordered protesters to disperse several times although they were hemmed on four sides by police. Johnson was released on personal recognizance early Friday after being charged with pedestrian interference and failure to disperse.

Asked why police began mass arrests, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske told KIRO-TV, "We have accommodated them for 8½ hours."

Referring to the injured police captain, the chief said, "I think it's a little more serious. This is a small number of people who were absolutely not content unless they provoked a confrontation."

A statement issued early Friday by the Committee for Local Government Accountability said protesters "regret the injury to the police officer" but added, "the behavior of one individual whose actions are not supported by the marchers does not justify complete crackdown on the entire demonstration."

The violence and arrests were a blemish on what activists earlier had described as a joyful commemoration of the protests by 50,000 people last year that shut down opening WTO ceremonies.

"There was no tear gas, hardly any arrests, no destruction" said John Foss, an organizer of Thursday's events.

Images of tear gas clouds rising over masses of protesters were beamed around the world last year, as some 630 were arrested and $3 million worth of property damage done, mostly in smashed storefront windows.

"I think it shows there's still a lot of passion and energy from a lot of different communities about what took place last year and what continues to happen with globalization," said the Rev. Pete Strimer, a priest at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral. He helped organize a march of 500 people for Jubilee 2000, which seeks debt relief for poor countries.

Most businesses remained open Thursday afternoon, with locals toting shopping bags through sidewalk crowds of protesters.

A few dozen black-clad anarchists like the ones blamed for last year's property damage were in the crowd Thursday. Several Starbucks coffee shops had been hit with spray paint or had their locks glued shut on Tuesday night.

Activists and academics describe the Seattle WTO protests as the watershed event in a worldwide anti-globalization movement that seeks to make corporations more answerable to local communities. Since the November 1999 protests, tens of thousands have joined street demonstrations outside trade and related events in Washington, Philadelphia, Prague, Thailand and Australia.

"There's 'before Seattle WTO,' and there's 'after Seattle.' It's a very significant event to commemorate that," said John Watson of Seattle, who described Thursday's demonstration as "almost like a veterans' parade."

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