Answering WTO's big questions

In a nutshell, what was WTO Seattle?

The Seattle World's Fair on acid. Only better.

But first let's agree that organizers meant well, didn't they?

So did the Titanic's designers. With boundless naivete and risk-taking, WTO planners were determined to showcase Seattle as a—God help us—"world-class city." City Hall and the "trade community" (those boosters on steroids) plunged nakedly into the pre-event abyss, soon finding themselves in over their collective heads. A modest international trade meeting had relentlessly mushroomed into a global convention of top world leaders—and protesters. Security costs and danger levels rose alarmingly. Faced with finding quick solutions or pulling the plug, overwhelmed organizers did neither. They simply believed their privately held fears wouldn't be realized—that everyone would just get along. That fragile hope ended with the breaking of the first window and the firing of the first tear gas and rubber bullets on the morning of November 30, 1999.

So who do we blame?

Well, we're not going to blame peaceful protesters for demonstrating against the WTO, whether in legal marches or in the civil disobedient, highly organized, and peaceful street actions. Second, we're not going to blame well-meaning delegates, trade officials, and others who came to do business at the Seattle round. But the ensuing chaos was triggered by some irresponsible parties.

First—and easiest to name—are those infamous "Eugene" anarchists and their running dogs who, roiling through downtown like the river Styx, trashed select retailers in the belief that violence against property isn't really violence. (It's not? Stand between a window and a flying rock and tell us that don't hurt!) WTO would not be a sickening and costly memory had it merely been shut down by nonviolent blockaders. That more peaceful tactic wouldn't likely have drawn the head-bashing backlash and the enduring, Beirutlike images of a city at war. At the very least, it wouldn't have given the police cover for their more questionable and outrageous acts.

Then there are the cops. WTO crowd control was bloody, exhausting, and frustrating—officers wrongly deployed the first day turned into a repelling army the second. In all, 56 cops and almost 100 demonstrators went to the hospital. Outfoxed and outnumbered, police quelled a protester riot with a police riot. It reminded us of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's famous statement back in 1968, when his police force was turned loose on Democratic Convention protesters: "A policeman isn't there to create disorder, a policeman's there to preserve disorder."

But the blame goes deeper. Who got us into this mess?

Here, the parlor lights flicker and—aha!--reveal 12 people holding the smoking gun: Port Commissioner Pat Davis, Mayor Paul Schell, ex-Police Chief Norman Stamper, and all nine then-City Council members, in that order.

WTO cohost Davis, director of a nonprofit corporation called Washington Council on International Trade, and cohost Schell, a multimillionaire resort hotelman, were overcome by world-class mania and took us down with them. They're gung ho whenever the topic includes those magic words "trade" and "convention"—of which they often extol the public benefits without mentioning the rewards such commerce brings to their own private businesses, not to mention to their cronies. They acted like they didn't need anyone else's approval to hold the 1999 WTO round here, in what Schell likes to dreamily call "the Geneva of the Pacific." The record shows Schell was involved for more than a year prior to the WTO ministerial opening, writing a bid letter to President Bill Clinton on behalf of Davis in August 1998. In wildly conflicting did-not, did-too revisionism, each now somewhat blames the other. Two of the area's top elected officials, they operated behind the scenes to hold a conference at whatever cost and risk to the public. Davis made promises of funding to US officials without telling the city and, to promote her cause, convinced Schell not to talk to US officials about chipping in even when ministerial costs were starting to go through the roof. Goodwill ambassador Schell, meanwhile, was glad-handing the media and inviting shoppers downtown even as his executive department was quietly turning City Hall into a security-clad bunker. With his city under siege on the second day of WTO, Schell was asked by a Seattle Times reporter if he had rejected a tighter, proactive security plan for opening day (the one that SPD intelligence officers, who had briefed Schell personally, were urging be employed). Schell responded: "Not to my knowledge. I don't ever recall turning down a more aggressive plan in dealing with demonstrators. I did agree that . . . we are not going to build an armed camp here." Almost by themselves, Schell and Davis blew WTO. They also muffed a last chance to do the right thing: at week's end, to walk into the middle of that illegal no-protest zone, confess all, and resign on the spot. Of course, it's never too late.

Chief Stamper, though he accepted blame and fell on the sword of "early retirement," failed miserably as the supposed head of security. It would have been one thing had he simply planned poorly for unpredictable riots. But there was angry disagreement from the start over Seattle's preparedness as the concern of some law enforcement officials turned to outright fear. Documents from his own police department now show that he was told WTO was on a security risk level bordering that of an Olympics event and to expect the worst—including the potential deaths of officers. But he made few if any decisions in the security planning for this massive event (even the mayor's WTO review report, albeit self-servingly, called the chief "virtually absent from any role of leadership"). Stamper delegated the entire matter to a subordinate, and when he did put in an appearance on November 30, as downtown was coming apart and his commanders were urging him to declare a civil emergency and call in reinforcements, he hesitated and lost control.