Chronicle of a Protest.

In preparing for the anticipated protests against the FTAA, Quebec City authorities encircled the entire venue of the Summit of the Americas with a 2.3-mile concrete and chain-link fence, later referred to by demonstrators as the "Wall of Shame." Within its perimeter--guarded by more than 6,000 specially trained riot police brought in from across Canada --were the hotels where the trade leaders stayed, as well as the convention center where the summit was held. The estimated total cost of this security effort came to $100 million, making it the largest police operation in the history of Canada.

What follows is a chronology of the major events as they unfolded, drawn from eyewitness accounts on both sides as well as from the media.

Monday, April 16, 2001

The six-day People's Summit, a series of seminars on the environment, human rights, and poverty--being held as an alternative to the forthcoming Summit of the Americas--opens in Quebec City. Over 2,000 invited attendees from all thirty-five countries of the Western Hemisphere (including Cuba, which will be excluded from the Summit of the Americas) gather to try and encourage a social component to what will be the otherwise business-focused talks on the FTAA at the Summit of the Americas.

Thursday, April 19, 2001

Hundreds of demonstrators stage peaceful protests against the FTAA in the afternoon and evening without incident.

After dark, at Universite de Laval and elsewhere, thousands of demonstrators arrive, with over 2,000 of them taking up their lodging in sleeping bags on the floor of one large gymnasium.

Friday, April 20, 2001

In the morning, before departing from the White House, George W. Bush declares: "Our goal in Quebec is to build a hemisphere of liberty" and to "make our hemisphere the largest free trade area in the world, encompassing thirty-four countries and 800 million people."

Meanwhile, in Quebec City, between 4,000 and 5,000 protesters form into two groups: one to demonstrate in the high-risk "Yellow Zone" at the front lines; the other to occupy the lower-risk "Green Zone" in the rear.

By 12:00 N demonstrators have filled the streets near the conference center; those in the Yellow Zone, drawing near the Wall of Shame, are drumming and chanting. When the Wall is reached, some begin shaking the fence to chants of "Tear down the Wall." With the use of a few bolt cutters, this crowd is able to bring a large section down. Then hundreds pour into the breech as others lob rocks, bottles, and fence debris at the defending police. The police respond with smoke bombs, concussion grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets. As the first wave of protesters retreats, it is replaced by a second. More retreats and waves follow. Police in riot gear--helmets, shields, and batons--stand shoulder-to-shoulder to form a human fence.

As the afternoon wears on, there are sporadic attacks on the protesters by police wielding nightsticks. Other police take up positions between nearby buildings. In various places, protesters sing, dance, drum, or simply sit in the street. During the confrontations, New Democrat Member of Parliament Svend Robinson is injured by police and peaceful protest leader Jaggi Singh has, without provocation, been nabbed from the Green Zone by undercover officers.

When trucks equipped with water cannons arrive at the rear of the crowd, hundreds of protesters swarm over them, forcing them to retreat. The police respond by firing multiple volleys of tear gas canisters, making many people disperse or flee to side streets. Eventually, by 8:00 PM, the police have forced most of the crowd several blocks back.

Because of the protests, the opening ceremonies of the three-day Summit of the Americas, scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM, have been delayed by an hour and a half. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in addressing the assembled national leaders, condemns the violence as "contrary to all democratic principles that are so dear to us," stating that the violent protesters "do not represent the vast majority of those who have come to Quebec City in order to express peacefully and calmly their legitimate concerns." Police later confirm that the violent protesters have constituted only a small percentage, and arrests up to this point have been few.

Street confrontations continue off and on throughout the night and into the predawn hours of Saturday.

Saturday, April 21, 2001

This morning, inside the meeting hall, the Summit of the Americas gets down to business on an agenda dominated by trade but including discussions on improving education, spreading democracy, fighting illicit drugs, easing poverty, promoting health care, increasing Internet access for poor countries, and protecting the environment. George W. Bush acknowledges that globalized trade can harm environmental standards and hurt workers but adds, "These concerns must not be an excuse for self-defeating protectionism" that would damage the trade deal. Though requested by the alternative People's Summit, no formal meeting between the delegates of the two summits occurs.

At mid-day, a labor-organized march assembles. Then, for a time, a back-and-forth exchange takes place as protesters slowly approach the Wall of Shame until they are fired upon by two water cannons mounted behind the partially repaired fence. They then slowly retreat, only to advance again. When rocks are thrown at police, police respond with tear gas. The police soon advance, using clubs to push the crowd back. But hundreds of people sit down in the street. So the police quietly retreat. And the process begins again. Overall, police clashes with small groups of protesters occur at four points along the perimeter and, in one instance, individual protesters throw Molotov cocktails.

Later in the afternoon, over 30,000 demonstrators, constituting a coalition of various protest groups, participate in a two-hour "March of the Peoples of the Americas" that takes place without incident and officially closes the People's Summit.

Around 4:00 PM, the police pursue a large number of protesters into the St. Jean-Baptiste neighborhood, firing both tear gas and water cannons at them. The gas and water enters the homes of some of the residents, many of whom had earlier aided the activists with food, drink, the use of bathrooms, and places to rest.

Reportedly, throughout the day, many of those arrested have been subjected to public strip searches, hosing down, or being handcuffed on buses for hours without access to water or toilet facilities.

Meanwhile, at the televised Summit of the Americas, dele gates agree that any country which ceases to be a democracy shall be excluded from future summits, refused membership in the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and denied the benefits of the Inter-American Development Bank, a key regional financer.

After dark in the city's Lower Town, the demonstrators engage in music and dancing in the streets and under the highways--until police tear gas assaults in the early morning hours break up the party. Over 200 are arrested--the police labeling the celebration a "riot," largely because revelers have torn wood from storefronts and signs to feed their bonfires.

Sunday, April 22, 2001

Following an early ecumenical religious service, the final working session of the Summit of the Americas begins.

In the afternoon, the summit ends with the leaders of thirty-four Western Hemisphere nations signing the Quebec Declaration, endorsing a regional trade pact that calls for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone by 2005. The World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank pledge loans and credit of up to $56 billion over the next four years for social development programs in the hemisphere. Communist-ruled Cuba is the only nation to be excluded. A promise is made to release a draft text of the pact, and the national leaders return home.

People who are gathered outside the Orsainville prison in solidarity with those arrested are gassed and threatened by riot police. Some prisoners are released.

Monday, April 23, 2001

In the hours before sunrise, in near freezing temperatures, busloads of previously arrested protesters are released onto the highways near remote bus stops. Learning of this, other protesters pick up many of the released in their cars and give them shelter.

During a press conference that afternoon at one of the sites where demonstrators are camped, a busload of released protesters is stopped by activists and forced to unload on the spot.

In the wake of the protests against the FTAA, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police report that 403 people were arrested and more than forty-five protesters went to area hospitals with injuries. Of the forty-six police officers injured, less than ten were taken to a hospital. Activists state that many injuries of protesters were from tear gas canisters that were fired horizontally into a crowd and from rubber bullets.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell wasn't bothered by the stench of tear gas permeating the air. "It didn't affect me," he told CNN when he arrived at the conference center for dinner. "But an old infantryman always remembers what tear gas and pot smell like when you walk into the barracks."

Not all protests involved tear gas, however. Simultaneously with the weekend demonstrations in Quebec City, there were tranquil anti-FTAA events held in various locales in Mexico and the United States. These were followed in May by demonstrations in Canada calling for public inquiries into alleged police brutality and improper arrests during the Quebec City events. And in June, on his European tour, George W. Bush was met by anti-free-trade and anti-space-weapons protesters in every country he visited.

All of this is part of a growing resistance movement worldwide as people of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities unite in the common cause of opposing free trade deals and related activities. That's why Seattle in 1999 and Quebec City in 2001 were only the beginning. Protests are now gearing up for the joint annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to be held September 28 through October 4 in Washington, D.C. Then there is the World Economic Forum to assess FTAA progress, tentatively scheduled for October 7 to 9 in Miami, Florida. It is unclear what will happen when the World Trade Organization holds its ministerial conference November 9 to 13 in Doha, Qatar, on the Persian Gulf. Protests are illegal there. That's why demonstrations are being planned for Ottawa, Canada, and perhaps elsewhere at that time.

As people continue to speak out in these ways, governments and policymakers are finding it increasingly necessary to take notice.

Fred Edwords is editor of the Humanist and former executive director of the American Humanist Association. He has written and lectured internationally on humanist issues, as well as the creation-evolution controversy.