Cancun Files: A Kinder, Gentler Mexican Police

Tom Hayden reports from the WTO ministerial conference in Cancun each day. Read yesterday's report.

CANCUN. Sept. 13 -- The Mexican government suddenly de-escalated its police tactics against global justice protestors this week, marking a break from years of bloody confrontations outside summit meetings around the world.

Certainly there have been rough moments and injuries at the barricades. Riot police stand ready if needed. But after four days of clashes at the fence, located about eight kilometers from the WTO convention center, after two days of nonviolent street blockages outside the center itself, WTO security has shown little of the aggression for which it is notorious. In the past, the security forces would have resembled an intimidating column of Darth Vaders. Rocks, bottles, or even epithets would be pretext enough for a club-swinging over-reaction, pepper gas, rubber bullets, bodies in the street, and for hauling bleeding demonstrators off to prison.

In the Cancun, the frontline police are unarmed. They block access to the boulevards, to be sure, and defend themselves with shields. But there is no evidence of systemic police intimidation or brutal misconduct.

This morning, for example, thousands of campesinos marched again along with many protestors outfitted with gas masks and other street-fighting regalia. They sliced into the fence with cutters, pulled it down with ropes, and advanced from the barrio into the convention area. Despite their actions, the police line stayed 50 meters back.

Not long after, a group of 15 South Korean farmers infiltrated the security perimeters and sat down in front of the convention center (where Tom Cruise filmed "Cocktail" at its TGIF restaurant) below a wall sign that asked "Does Your Mother Know You're Here." About 50 security guards rushed in and forcibly shoved the Koreans back about 100 feet, clearing the boulevard for delegates but still leaving the protest in full view of the occupants of the building. Urgent cell phone communiques went out declaring that the police were beating Koreans. In reality, the confrontation was a brief scuffle; at other summits it might have led to batons, tear gas and handcuffs.

In this case, the unarmed police set up a low metal fence and pulled up an air-conditioned bus to eventually take the Koreans back to their encampment. They seemed unconcerned at a group of protestors shaking their fists and shouting at them in a foreign tongue. The standoff ensued for two hours without the high-pitch emotional tenor that arises when police violently reassert their authority.

The Koreans shouted slogans, made a press statement, sat down to rest, and periodically tried to pull down or push over the fence defended by the security guards. It was more like an arm-wrestling match than a riot. After a time, several of the police laughed along with some of the Koreans at the situation. A few minutes later, the Koreans formed a line, shouted chants, charged fiercely into the police -- and pulled off their caps like practical jokers. An American protestor, Antonia Juhasz, grabbed one of the brown baseball-style "seguridad" hats as a souvenir. Later, while she was distracted, an officer grabbed it back from her purse. Paul Nicholson, a burly Basque ex-rugby player and militant campesino leader, watched in solidarity and amusement.

After the police arranged for the Korean leader, Changgeun Lee, to speak by cell phone to an attorney, the group finally boarded the tourist bus and were returned to Kilometer Zero, where the Korean farmers have camped since the ritual suicide of Lee Kyung Hae last Monday. No charges were filed for blocking traffic, creating a nuisance, resisting an order to disperse, or other infractions routinely used as excuses to crack down on activists.