Nov 5, 2003

“We’d Rather Wear Nothing Than Wear Gap!”

--Activists to strip at Hollywood Gap en route to Miami trade talks--

---Tuesday, November 11, 12 Noon, The Gap, 6830 Hollywood Blvd (& Highland), Los Angeles---

--100,000 expected to protest the FTAA in Miami Nov 17- 21--

Los Angeles, CA - On the heels of their victory against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun, Mexico, in September, global justice activists are headed to Miami to derail the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) talks scheduled for November 20-21. The Gapatista Road Show, after its Hollywood premier Tuesday, November 11, is heading across the country with stops in seven southern cities, to join up with an anticipated 100,000 protesters in Miami opposing the FTAA.

The Road Show includes activists stripping off their clothes atop a giant 200-year-old redwood stump, to the chant, “We’d rather wear nothing than wear Gap!” The beautiful 5.5 foot wide redwood was logged by the Fisher family of Gap Inc. who are clear-cutting thousands of acres of redwood forest in Mendocino.

Why the Gap? Mary Pjerrou, one of the road show organizers, said, “Our environment, our communities, and our democracy all are being destroyed by corporate pirates, who prowl the globe for the cheapest labor and natural resources. The Gap is one of the worst. Its ruling family is destroying forests, polluting rivers and seas, busting unions, and using worker-slaves in fifty-five countries to sew Gap clothes. The FTAA will intensify and expand this kind global piracy throughout our hemisphere.”

Pjerrou spoke about the Cancun protests: “In Cancun, twenty-six of the poorest nations walked out of the WTO talks--buoyed by the presence of thousands of protestors in the streets. Their resistance casts doubt on the future of these extremely unfair trade deals. We hope to have the same result in Miami.”

A Korean farmer committed suicide in Cancun over the impacts of globalization on family farms. Mary Bull, a road show organizer who was in Cancun, said: “So called ‘free trade’ is killing thousands of family farmers around the world. It is destroying local economies. Global corporations, instead of creating wealth for everyone, are creating poverty, war, and massive environmental destruction. We want to see the end to corporate rule over all of our lives!”

The Gapatistas took their name from the famous Zapatistas, the indigenous Mayans of Chiapas, Mexico, who revolted against the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994.

The Gapatista Road Show includes protest stops at Gap stores in Los Angeles, Tucson, El Paso, Austin, New Orleans, Tallahassee, and finally Miami. •

From: Save the Redwoods-Boycott the Gap
Web: www.gapsucks.org
Contact: Mary Bull: 415-509-1188 (on the road), 415-731-7924 (offc) , Mary Pjerrou: 707-877-3405 (offc)