Unease in Seattle at WTO Anniversary
S E A T T L E, Nov. 30 -- Authorities are hoping demonstrators marking the anniversary of last year’s riotous World Trade Organization protests don’t go beyond peaceful marches and teach-ins.
But vandalism at nine Starbucks coffee bars has left the city uneasy.
The stores, among dozens of Starbucks in the city, suffered minor damage late Tuesday or early Wednesday — with broken windows, glue in locks and spray-painted walls marked with a circled “A,” a graffiti tag used by anarchists during WTO demonstrations last year.
There was no direct evidence linking protesters to the vandalism, but “it’s disturbing there were anarchist symbols,” said Dick Lilly, a spokesman for Mayor Paul Schell.
Starbucks officials said they planned tighter security but declined to elaborate.
Avoiding a Repeat
Authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of last year, when 50,000 protesters crammed into downtown and shut down some sessions of the WTO meeting.
Overwhelmed police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters and closed off much of downtown. The riots resulted in 600 arrests, $3 million in property damage, numerous civil-rights lawsuits and the police chief’s sudden early retirement.
The WTO, a trade alliance of 140 countries, has become a target for a wide range of activists who believe it represents corporate globalization and gives short shrift to the environment and workers.
Only about 5,000 demonstrators were expected to march today. Just the anniversary will be marked; there are no WTO meetings in the city this year.
Jean Buskin, a Seattle biochemist coordinating the anniversary protests, said she expected no violence.
Some Groups Stay Away
She said the vandalism was a shame because Starbucks has been receptive to activists’ arguments and now offers fair-trade coffee, which promotes coffee grown in developing countries by small producers. Starbucks has been criticized as a big business turning small-town America into a generic landscape of chain stores and squeezing out independent businesses.
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