On the March

At midday today around 100 people meet at Aotea Square. Led by marchers carrying a huge banner reading 'Notforsale.org.nz: No Free Trade Deal with the US we marched down Queen Street. The banner was so big it became a little bit impractical at times as it dragged at the bottom so some of us carrying it occasionally tripped on it. As one of the banner carriers, I had to carry it at neck height so my head just popped over the top.

The Greenpeace mobile sound system, in a wheelie bin, was pumping out Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, Atari Teenage Riot and other stirring protest anthems, giving the march a nice Rhythm to it. One demonstrator carried a lit flare making pretty lights. Once we got down to the intersection with Victoria Street roadworkers informed us we couldn't march down Queen Street so we took an indirect route downtown via side streets. We started chanting "hey hey USA, how many kids you killed today", "when corporate elites are on the attack attack: stand up fight back!". One member of the National Distribution Union (NDU) gave a speech on how a free trade deal with the US could well mean Pharmac is no longer able to subsidise prescription medicines. This would be good for the big US drug companies, such as Pfizer, but bad for us ordinary people having to pay increased prices for a basic necessity.

Another comrade led us in an awesome chant that nearly covered pretty much every concern that demonstrators had about the extremely destructive form of corporate globalization and state repression being pushed by the governments of both the US and NZ: “When corporate elites are on the attack – stand up fight back!, when innocent Iraqis are under attack – stand up fight back. When GE free is under attack…, when our environment…, when Tonga’s democracy movement is…, when East Timor is under attack…, when indigenous people are under attack…, when the Treaty of Waitangi is under attack- STAND UP FIGHT BACK!”

I had wondered why there were no cops following us, until we marched on to the feeder bridge that ends at the Viaduct harbour. I could see a wall of police in fluro jackets blocking the entrance to the Viaduct (and hence the Hilton). I joked with the NDU activist next to me that I could see a whole heap of people in fluro yellow but I didn’t think they were NDU members. Two activists very capably directed traffic, so both the cars could drive on the bridge and protesters could safely march along it.

Arriving at the Hilton

When we arrived at the entrance to the Viaduct one demonstrator, with a loud hailer, started saying “if you care about the environment take a step forward”(I can’t remember his exact words). The crowd steps forward. “If you care about democracy take one step forward.” The crowd stepped forward until they were just in front of the police lines. Jane Kelsey, a professor of law at the University of Auckland and well known social justice campaigner, gave an impassioned speech about how the US-NZ Partnership Forum was such an anti-democratic set up that it had to meet behind huge security, in much the same way that Sydney was turned into a police state for APEC, in order to push an extremely anti-human and anti-democratic form of globalization. She also spoke of how a huge number of people’s organizations of workers, peasants and other poor people in South East Asia and Latin America were seriously challenging the neo-liberal corporate globalization order. In the Philippines, which has suffered over a century of domination by American imperialism* ,popular movements have stopped the government entering into free trade negotiations with the USA.

The driveway was blocked. Cars couldn’t get in or out so the cops pushed people back to create an entrance for vehicles. The police formed a new line in front of their entrance way, leaving the demonstrators to occupy the rest of the entrance. For the next 20 minutes or so there were some more speakers, including ones from the Water Pressure Group and Citizens Against Privatisation. People milled around listening to the music, talking and sometimes dancing. One young woman started speaking about how a US-NZ Free Trade Agreement was a threat to NZ sovereignty and we had to stand up to protect our nation, as proud New Zealanders. I got a bit annoyed when she got heckled by a few people yelling “nationalist crap!”. Considering that the poster for the demo had a map of Aotearoa with a caption ‘For sale?’, it did not seem like such an out of place argument for someone to make, even though many of us, including myself, dislike nationalism. Nevertheless I like the writings of the late Aotearoa nationalist and Marxist, Bruce Jesson. He made excellent critiques of neo-liberalism and passionately argued that socialism needed to be adapted to suit Aotearoa conditions. I imagine if he was still alive he could well have been there with us yesterday.

A Police Photographer – just like in Zimbabwe or West Papua!

Behind the police lines this whole time was the ominous presence of a police photographer taking photos of us with a huge telephoto lens. I put on a huge grin, waved at him and started yelling “I’m smiling for you! Come on take the photo!”. I stood for a bit longer smiling and pulling funny faces. When he appeared to be aiming at people speaking on the mike I stood in front of them to try obscure his view. I’m not sure if this worked or not. A couple of times he put his camera down when I did and tried pointing at something else. However, I doubt this did much good because he had a huge telephoto lens and he was behind police lines so I couldn’t obscure his view completely. I started yelling out to him “Hey did you know that taking photos of protesters is something cops do in Zimbabwe? Did ya?” The photocop just stared into the distance with a blank expression, as cops usually do. A friend next to me said “Nah he probably didn’t”. I remember watching a news item showing a demonstration in Zimbabwe against the vile dictator Robert Mugabe. There were police on the sidelines taking photos of people. Indonesian Police and Military also do the same thing at peaceful demonstrations in West Papua.

Cops Get Viciously Violent

By this stage we were planning on leaving. I was holding up the big banner at the front and one of the protester leaders came up to me and said that we were about to leave, so bring the banner back out to the front of the march. As demonstrators were leaving, the commanding officer of the Team Policing Unit (the thugs the police use to break up parties and demonstrations) began barking into his loud hailer that the entrance was now a restricted zone and that we had to all leave or we would be arrested. He literally did bark, sounding like a vicious dog. It took a while for the 70 or so demonstrators to file through to the footpath because it had been blocked off by road works barriers, leaving only a metre wide gap to get through. All of a sudden the cops started barking “MOVE, MOVE, MOVE” and pushed forward in a tight line.

The Greenpeace wheelie bin boombox became quite soundtrack like, suddenly switching track to “bad boys, bad boys. What you gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you”. Several people fell over and then got crushed by other demonstrators being forced back by the cops. The cops were yelling “get behind the barrier” but no one could get behind because they were being crushed up against the barrier. I put out my arm and said to the cops “stop moving there’s people on the ground getting crushed”. Others were doing the same. Someone could have been seriously injured or worse. The cop responded “yeah ok” but then kept on pushing forward over the fallen demonstrators. What was really disconcerting was the police officers’ completely emotionless robot like expressions while they were busy forcing themselves forward hurting people. I didn’t see the arrests but suddenly heard everyone chanting “shame, shame, shame”.

I suppose they had some ‘better work stories’ to tell their friends and family.

What is to be done

I think everyone who has a chance should write a complaint to the Police Complaints Authority about the behaviour of the Police yesterday. While probably nothing will happen, it will mean that public disgust at their actions will be on the record. If ordinary people acted like the cops did yesterday they would have been arrested and put before the courts.

Most importantly we need to continue building a movement against a free trade agreement with the US, anti-human corporate globalization, war and militarism. The Not for Sale Campaign have made a great contribution. In the words of the Australian singer and Aboriginal activist Kev Carmody “out of little things big things grow”.

*In 1899 the US invaded the Philippines. A 15 year long war ensued in which Filipino nationalists resisted US forces. Over a hundred thousand Filipinos died. US forces raped, pillaged and even massacred whole villages. Filipinos were forced live in controlled internment camps, in much the same as the Japanese Imperial army forced people in China to 30 years later and the US did in Vietnam during the 1960s and 70s.