As the recent round of WTO (World Trade Organization) talks in Cancún, México entered its third day on Saturday, a crowd of approximately 500 peacefully took to the streets of Toronto in protest of the organization and the effect that it is having on the poor of the world. They were marching alongside protestors all over the globe. The rally was organized by Making the Links Coalition, which was formed to organize against the WTO and the FTAA(Free Trade Agreement of the Americas).
James Clark, a representative from Project Threadbare, one of the 40 organizations that comprise the Making the Links Coalition, said that it was important to show the link between trade, war and the resistance to civil liberties and that the march was another example of “the coming together of the anti-capitalist and anti-war movement.” He feels that “militarization and the war is related to the neo-liberal agenda,” and went on to use Iraq as an example: “key corporations are rebuilding Iraq and people there are now having to pay for water.”
Marching behind a banner that read: “Say no to the WTO,” the protesters started with a rally at the American Embassy and walked through the downtown and up to Grange Park where they listened to speeches. Abdul Rahman Malik from the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War and a U of T alumnus, gave an impassioned speech in which he referred to the Pakistani students who were arrested last month in Toronto on suspicion that they might pose a terrorist threat. “We are the world in this city,” said Malik, who went on to stress the importance of seeing the “links between local injustice and global injustice.” Malik spoke about the “shameful examples of what we are talking about…when our corporations say ‘jump’ and our government says ‘how high?'”
Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress said that “racism was rampant in the U.S.A. today,” and urged everyone: “stop buying American goods, stop going to Starbucks, go to Tim Hortons instead…and even though the CBC is crap it’s Canadian crap.”
U of T students were also part of the rally. Zachary and Amrit, who are both first year students in the humanities and social sciences, have become involved in the recently formed U of T chapter of Making the Links. It was a first rally for Zachary who said that he was there because “the WTO is an organization that has no interest in people…The WTO is committed to turning public sector into private, it takes advantage of other countries, they are working just for themselves.” For him the rally was “to let other people know what’s going on. If people see us they can ask why are they doing this.”
Amrit has been following the anti-war and anti-globalization movement and he is concerned that “the interests of corporations are being put ahead of people.” Amrit also worries about Iraq, where he sees that “the U.S. government has privatized the whole country. The oil will become in the hands of big corporations.” He feels that the rally was successful and hopes that “everybody watches and sees us and more people will become educated about what’s going on in the world.”
