Revelry in Quebec

by Sarah Anderson

I reek of tear gas and haven't slept much, but my spirits are high from the dose of vindication I got on the streets of Quebec City. As I write this, I'm heading home from the protests at the Third Summit of the Americas, where George Bush and other leaders endorsed a timetable to negotiate a hemisphere-wide trade and investment deal called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

I remember the first Summit of the Americas, held in Miami back in December 1994, when President Clinton and thirty-three other leaders of countries in the western hemisphere (everyone but Castro) first got together to hatch plans for the FTAA. By some crazy fluke, I wound up on a list of token free trade critics who were invited to all the official summit soirees. Since we were outnumbered by business leaders by at least 400 to 1, I suppose they felt we couldn't do much harm. And they were right.

Those were heady days for free traders. Still cocky from their victory in the epic battle over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), they were further puffed up by Congress's approval, only days before the summit, of the deal that created the World Trade Organization. So the Miami Summit became a free trade lovefest for big corporations and their friends in government.

The thirty-four leaders spent their balmy days in harmonious discussions, unperturbed by protesters. Their evenings were filled with lavish receptions and dinners, including a ride aboard a 200-foot yacht owned by billionaire John Kluge. Corporate sponsors--led by AT&T, IBM, American Airlines, Bell South, and Archer Daniels Midland--chipped in more than $250,000 apiece to cover the tabs.

The most extravagant event was a Quincy Jones-produced spectacle featuring superstars from the hemisphere, including Liza Minelli, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Patti LaBelle, Morgan Freeman, Maya Angelou, Paul Anka, Kenny G, and Rita Marley. Gloria Estefan sent a videotaped greeting to the heads of state and their wives from her maternity bed.

Clad in a dress I'd purchased for $1 at a yard sale, I found myself seated about three rows behind the Clinton cabinet. I watched as a parade of corporate leaders, including financier David Rockefeller and other men who clearly owned their own tuxedoes, swarmed around the cabinet members. The exuberant backslapping was the kind of celebration you would expect to find in the men's locker room after a championship victory.

When the Quincy concert was over, we were bused to a dinner of stone crab claws and beef tenderloin, followed by fireworks over Biscayne Bay.

The next day, I flew back to Washington, D.C., carrying a complimentary briefcase filled with pens and calculators from the summit's corporate sponsors and an utterly crushed spirit. The fight over free trade was over. We'd lost. I had just seen it with my own eyes.

As I return home from Quebec City, I'm lugging a suitcase packed with well-developed critiques of free trade, many in multiple languages, from fellow activists throughout the hemisphere. This time, my spirit is rejuvenated by a growing resistance movement that has made phenomenal strides.

The contrast between the two summits is reflected in the balance sheets: The Miami event cost a total of about $15 million, mostly for sprucing up the city, while the Canadian government reportedly forked out as much as $60 million on security alone. While the presidents gallivanted about Miami in their motorcades, the leaders in Quebec City were bunkered behind a ten-foot-high, 2.5-mile-long fence nicknamed the "Wall of Shame," as 6,000 riot police battled to keep protesters at bay. While the Miami summiteers dined under tents on the oceanfront, George Bush couldn't even dash from his hotel to his limousine fast enough to avoid a whiff of tear gas.