The Slaves of Money...and Our Rebellion
The Death Train of the WTO
By Subcomandante MARCOS

Brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world, who are gathered in Cancun in a mobilisation against neo- liberalism, greetings from the men, women, children and elderly of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. It is an honour for us that, amid your meetings, agreements and mobilisations, you have found time and place to hear our words.

The world movement against the globalisation of death and destruction is experiencing one of its brightest moments in Cancun today. Not far from where you are meeting, a handful of slaves to money are negotiating the ways and means of continuing the crime of globalisation.

The difference between them and all of us is not in the pockets of one or the other, although their pockets overflow with money while ours overflow with hope.

No, the difference is not in the wallet, but in the heart. You and we have in our hearts a future to build. They only have the past which they want to repeat eternally. We have hope. They have death. We have liberty. They want to enslave us.
[more]

Body and Soul has some very good links on the WTO meetings in Cancun...

More from Cancun

including...

Activists must follow the money
Protestors in Cancun understand that neo-liberalism is a form of war
by Naomi Klein

On Monday, seven anti-privatisation activists were arrested in Soweto for blocking the installation of prepaid water meters. The meters are a privatised answer to the fact that millions of South Africans cannot pay their water bills. The new gadgets work like pay-as-you-go mobile phones, only instead of having a dead phone when you run out of money, you have dead people, sickened by cholera-infested water.

On the day South Africa's "water warriors" were locked up, Argentina's negotiations with the International Monetary Fund bogged down. The sticking point was rate hikes for privatised utility companies. In a country where 50% of the people live in poverty, the IMF is demanding that multinational water and electricity companies be allowed to increase their rates by a staggering 30%. At trade summits, debates about privatisation seem wonkish. On the ground, they are as clear and urgent as the right to survive.

After September 11, rightwing pundits couldn't bury the globalisation movement fast enough. In times of war, they said, no one would care about frivolous issues like water privatisation. Much of the anti-war movement fell into a related trap: now was not the time to focus on divisive economic debates, but to come together to call for peace.

All this nonsense ended in Cancun this week, when thousands of activists converged to declare that the brutal economic model advanced by the WTO is itself a form of war. War because privatisation and deregulation kill - by pushing up prices on necessities like water and medicines, and pushing down prices on raw commodities like coffee, making small farms unsustainable. War because those who resist are routinely arrested, beaten and even killed. War because when this low-intensity repression fails to clear the path to corporate liberation, the real wars begin. The global anti-war protests grew out of the networks built by years of globalisation activism. And despite attempts to keep the movements separate, their only future lies in the convergence represented by Cancun.
[more]