Funded By IOP, Students Study Trade Summit Protesters

A major trade summit this week is expected to draw hundreds of officials, tens of thousands of protesters, eight Harvard students and an Institute of Politics (IOP) fellow.

Delegates from governments and businesses across the Western Hemisphere are meeting in Miami in an effort to launch the world’s largest free trade bloc, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Such efforts have been dogged in recent years by dissenting voices both inside and outside the meetings.

Students say they want to find out where these voices are coming from: Armed with 500 surveys and funded in part by the IOP, they are headed for the front lines to study the backgrounds and attitudes of those who make up today’s “global justice movement.”

The project is a field trip of sorts for their study group on globalization with Tom Hayden. Hayden, a leader in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and now a California State Senator, helped prepare the surveys and facilitate the trip.

Proponents of the FTAA say the plan, which would remove barriers to trade and investment among all the countries of the hemisphere except Cuba, would promote economic growth, opportunities for employment, access to goods and services and ultimately greater prosperity to their 800 million citizens.

Those converging on the streets of Miami contend that the FTAA would in reality increase poverty rates, discard laws protecting the environment and public safety, and weaken democracy and local cultures. They add that the plan would shed U.S. jobs and hurt farmers.

Students say they hope to learn more about the protesters’ concerns.

“We’re told to think about these policies from a particular American business viewpoint,” said Madeleine S. Elfenbein ’04. “Meeting people who have studied and experienced the effects of the policies is a great way to offset that dogma.”

The students will be in Miami for four days, distributing their surveys both inside forums and out in the streets.

Surveys will ask participants questions ranging from their occupation and ethnicity to their voting patterns and beliefs about fellow activists (Agree or disagree: “Many of the Movement’s activists will be marginalized and repressed”).

The IOP provided much of the funding for this study of the FTAA and the movement around it,

agreeing to cover airfare for the eight students and the costs of printing the survey.

Some students hope to move beyond the observer role. “We want to do as much as possible, not just as spectators, but also to participate, network and inform people about what the FTAA is doing,” said Toussaint G. Losier ’04.

Miami police have taken extensive measures to secure the summit, closing downtown streets and preemptively detaining some demonstrators. A police press release last Friday warned that “radical activists attempting to reign anarchy on our community may attempt to blend in and bring disruption and violence.”

There is also concern about the safety of the protesters. Police actions have injured hundreds at past trade protests, including dozens with rubber bullets outside the last regional FTAA summit in Quebec City in 2001.

Students hope to stay safe in Miami. Several have been able to obtain press credentials for the trip. None doubt the importance of what is happening there, and they believe the protests work.

“Seattle made the WTO a household name,” said Denise Lambert ’07, referring to mass demonstrations at a 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in that city that contributed to the breakdown of the talks.

Other students added that what some are already calling the “Battle of Miami” may do the same for the FTAA.

“Students need to be aware that there’s a new form of government in the making here that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives,” said Hayden. “It’s not just about trade. We’re all experiencing a new status of disenfranchisement.”