A Day in the Life of a Protester

A Day in the Life of a Protester

From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter Don Knapp

December 3, 1999

Protestor

Carmen Nogales is new to protesting. The twenty-three year old commercial actress and temp worker came to Seattle from Los Angeles, she says, to protest World Trade Organization policies, she claims, harm her South American friends.

Carmen Nogales says, "I came out here with no intention of getting arrested; now I'm not so sure."

After her first long day of demonstrations, she's already a veteran. Many of her friends were arrested after sitting down and refusing to move, in what city officials declared a no protest area.

Carmen Nogales says, "I'm seeing my friends being hauled off. It's definitely changing my life. I can't go back to watching my television and to normalcy."

If events here do change Nogales' life, it's exactly what organizers hoped to achieve.

Jerry Madsen's Citizens Trade Campaign worked five months to help plan sixty protest events. He says, "After we do the teach in, what happens is we put people in the street, every day."

The larger theme of the protestors may well be World Trade Organization policies, but out here, the protest has been reduced to a running battle with police for control of Seattle's streets."

After suffering what the police chief called a defeat, a beefed up force tried to take charge.

Most demonstrators felt their message was obscured by the vandalism of a relatively small group. These hard-hatted sheet metal workers came to show solidarity with the peaceful demonstrators and to help clean up the streets.

Dwight Nelson says, "I think we have similar beliefs, different issues, but we're approaching it a different way."

When we left her, Carmen Nogales was still considering how she will approach it. She says, "Maybe I'm spoiled as an American citizen, but I believe in what our forefathers fought for. And I may have to get arrested to do that."

Additional Notes:

News and a photo display of the Seattle demonstrations against the WTO (World Trade Organization) can be found at the following sites.

The Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC) is composed of religious, labor, consumer, family-owned farms and environmental organizations. CTC works to promote U.S. trade policy that encourages environmental and social fairness. This coalition was formed in 1992 and has activists from all over the United States. Some of the CTC activities include lobbying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and educating the public on the effects of international trade. Representatives from the Humane Society (ASPCA), Teamsters (IBT), Public Citizen, United Auto Workers (UAW), and other groups make up the CTC executive committee.

Citizens Trade Campaign