MONTREAL – Over 500 riot police came out to intimidate 75 protesters who blocked traffic and delivered caskets to a pre-FTAA cocktail party at the Conférence de Montréal.
Transnational elites, including Vicente Fox, boozed it up while discussing plans for worldwide capitalist domination. Outside, a substantial police presence protected them from democratic dissent.
The mood of the demonstration was somber, as protesters laid down the coffins in front of hundreds of riot cops.
While the Summit of the Americas has symbolic importance for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) negotiation process, it is at private, off-the-record meetings such as this conference that privatization deals are negotiated and the true goals of the FTAA are advanced.
In addition to the protesters, other conference-goers include Vincente Fox, Pierre Pettigrew, and the president of La Conférence de Montréal, Paul Desmarais Jr. (also the CEO of Power Corporation), who owns over half of Quebec’s daily newspapers. Also present were some secret agents taking pictures of protesters.
