Actions in Auckland against NZ-US Partnership Forum

Around 100 people marched down Queen Street to the Hilton Hotel to protest against the NZ-US Partnership Forum. The forum, which brings together representatives of the two governments as well as from major US and NZ corporations to work on tightening the economic and political links between the two nations, was moved in the last minute from the Auckland Museum to the Hilton Hotel.

The protests had begun earlier in the day with a picket at the road corner by approximately 20 people, during the time Prime Minister Helen Clark arrived at the forum. The main march began at Aotea Square at 12 noon, with protesters taking the street, setting off flares and chanting all the way to the Hilton. Upon arrival at the Forum venue, a stand-off began with the police. After a short period, a scuffle erupted when the police attempted to open one lane to allow vehicles to enter and exit the area, an attempt which succeeded despite some resistance from a number of people. Some time later the police made a decision to open the remaining lane and force the protesters onto the footpath behind plastic barriers. In the ensuing altercation, three people were arrested and several injured.

The protests highlighted a number of issues. Our World Is Not For Sale spokesperson Ryan Bodman stated that the results of a free trade agreement between the US and Australia have included "the degradation of environmental protection, particularly in relation to genetic engineering of food, the degredation of quarantine laws, an economic nightmare for small farmers and businesses, a huge increase in australia's trade defecit with the us, reduced access to affordable Australian pharmaceuticals and threats to australian manufacturing jobs." The same results and others can be expected if an NZ/US agreement is signed.

Links: Our World Is Not For Sale campaign | Protest Timeline | Our World Is Not For Sale Press Release | Pre-Protest Feature | Pre-Protest police repression | Protest Reports: 1 | 2 | 3

Images : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Video : 1

On the March

At midday today around 100 people met 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.

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!”

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.

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. During that scuffle three people were arrested and several activists were injured by the police. The cops threw punches and grabbed a woman's breasts. One cop's hat was expropriated.

Related

http://notforsale.org.nz