Bay Windows - National News, December 9, 1999
Beth Berlo, Bay Windows staff

Luthens is a member of Equality Washington/HOW, OutFront Labor/GLBT Pride at Work, and Queers Fight WTO. Like so many other protesters, she was demonstrating for more than one cause. But what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration turned into one of the most violent political protests the nation has seen in some time.

"There was an immense amount of violence committed by the police and National Guard who hurt a lot of people," Luthens said. "The police were shooting rubber bullets, and using pepper spray and tear gas and were shooting off concussion grenades. Most of it was directed at non-violent protesters and bewildered bystanders. The police completely over-reacted."

In the aftermath of the unrest, Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper announced his retirement from the police department, effective in March. Gay activists across the political spectrum had called for Stamper's -- and Mayor Paul Schell's -- resignation in response to police actions that included tear gas canisters that were lobbed on two consecutive nights across Capitol Hill, the city's mostly heavily gay enclave. Stamper's announcement caught city and state officials by surprise, causing some to speculate that Stamper is taking a fall for Mayor Schell. Both men deny that.

According to the Associated Press, Stamper's resignation follows nearly nine months of turmoil over the integrity of the police department's internal investigations division, the latest in a series of episodes that strained relations between the chief and the city's 1,200 uniformed officers during his nearly six-year tenure.

Barely six months into the job, he riled many in the ranks by wearing his uniform in a gay pride parade while barring officers from marching in uniform at a March for Jesus the same weekend.

Luthens, along with Rich Pfouts, president of Equality Washington/Hands Off Washington, attended the demonstration to protest several gay rights advances which they say are being threatened by the WTO. "It's fairly well known that the WTO presents grave threats to laws protecting the environment, labor, and public health standards," he said. "Fewer people are aware, however, of the threat the WTO poses to the new domestic-partnership [DP] laws in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco."

The three cities have ordinances that require businesses that contract with them to offer domestic-partner (DP) benefits to unmarried employees partners equal to those with spouses.

"There is movement afoot within the WTO to extend the Agreement on Government Procurement (AGP) to all cities within the United States, which would render the domestic-partner laws unenforceable," continued Luthens, a union organizer and attorney.

Luthens recently presented workshops on "How the WTO Threatens Domestic Partnership Laws," at the Queers Fight the WTO Conference in Seattle and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's "Creating Change" conference in Oakland, Calif.

In addition, both of these conferences presented workshops on how the WTO perpetuates the global AIDS crisis because it allegedly places the patents and profits of pharmaceutical companies in much higher regard than the needs of poor people with AIDS. "Fully 90 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are in developing countries where people have limited ability to pay for drugs, the same countries whose needs are ignored by the WTO," said Sydney Levy, campaign director at International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). "That's why we're targeting WTO with demands."

IGLHRC says the Clinton/Gore Administration and multinational pharmaceutical companies have used the WTO to undermine existing international trade laws which would allow for developing countries to access HIV/AIDS medicines at considerably reduced costs.

The group is angered, it says, at the administration's repeated protections of corporate profits and intellectual property claims over public health when the two have come into conflict. "They have prioritized pharmaceutical lobbyist concerns over public health. They have manipulated trade regulations to keep life-saving medicines accessible only to the most wealthy in the world to ensure profits for the pharmaceutical industry," said Jaime Balboa, IGLHRC public education director.

The group made two demands last week. The first is the premise that health care is a human right and that public health needs must be prioritized before commercial considerations. The second demand calls for reforms of the WTO. "People are dying but the WTO is putting profits before people," Levy said.

The Seattle Times this week reported that city officials claim that the riots ended with 600 arrests, $2.5 million in property damage, and $17 million in lost retail sales in the downtown area.

Among the scores of accounts of what has been described as severe police brutality, was Paul Bristo of Seattle. Bristo, who is on disability and has AIDS, was denied his medication for more than 50 hours, allowed no phone calls, had his eyeglasses taken away when arrested. He says those glasses were not returned, and he was denied food for the first 14 hours.

"One kid was picked up by his dredlocks and swung back and forth by two guards," Bristo remembered. "I was being compliant, passive and was just lying on my stomach chanting, æThis is what democracy looks like,' when someone twisted my head back for a mug shot. I did not want to say I had AIDS because I knew I would immediately go into isolation. It was psychological warfare."

Ryan Flegal of Santa Monica said the bulk of the violence he endured was in jail: "I was taken directly off the bus into the Kent jail house and directly into solitary confinement where they wrenched my arms behind my back. I was just crying æWe shall overcome' and they left me in a cell from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. with no toilet, no bed, no running water, food or blanket. I shivered all night long. The temperature of the jail is reasonably cool, but the temperature of the concrete is the same as outside concrete and they had taken my jacket and shoes. I was in jail four days. I'm stunned. Whatever crime they may have served us with may have been three times that of what they charged us with."

Flegal also said that because he did not have a wristband, he couldn't make a phone call or see a lawyer, and received just two meals in the four days -- "dinner on the third night and breakfast on the fourth morning." Like dozens of others, he was never told why he was arrested. "Some people literally accused me of failing to obey the WTO," he said.

Some people were arrested who weren't even protesting, Flegal added. "There were dozens of people who were walking to work and just got swooped up and handcuffed and shackled." On Capitol Hill, bystanders angry over what they were seeing started chanting "Go home, Go home!, and were making Nazi salutes toward to police to express their displeasure. Suddenly, angry police officers started running toward those bystanders, gassing, pushing and clubbing them. Witnesses were further frustrated because the Darth Vader-esque riot gear officers were wearing prevented anyone from identifying individual officers, who refused to give their names or badge numbers.

Activists say that most people aren't familiar with the inner workings of the World Trade Organization, established in 1995 as an offspring of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and have been happy keeping it that way.

That is, until last week.
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