The circus is coming to town

Cancún shimmers under a tropical sun. It is “action central” on the Caribbean coast. It is home to one of Mexico’s busiest airports, where you can catch planes to most of Europe and El Norte, as well as Cuba, Jamaica, and other Caribbean ports of call. During spring and winter vacations it positively roars with energy as hundreds of thousands of crazed students and non-students pour in for a week or two of usually drunk and often disorderly behavior. All year long, it is the center of the drug traffic that moves onto—and north from—the beaches of the Yucatán peninsula. Next to Miami, it is the most important crossroads on the North American continent for the business—legal and otherwise—coming from and going to the rest of the hemisphere.

Cancún is a world-class city, with all the pluses and minuses that go along with such an elevated (some would say degraded) status. Crime, official corruption, drug addiction: all part of the scene. There is a big police presence here, but no one is sure who they’re working for. The last governor, Mario Villanueva, is currently in prison, awaiting trial for narco-trafficking, along with a fair number of his pals and business associates. Meanwhile, the money keeps pouring in, fueled by a coast of unparalleled beauty which is being defiled by serried rows of high rise luxury hotels for international travelers. This means that there is lots of security as well as scenic beauty.

Into this scene will come some of the most powerful—and reviled—men (and a few women) in the world: the delegates to the World Trade Organization conference that is scheduled to take place here later this month. And, since everyone loves a party, they will not be alone. Tens of thousands of demonstrators from all over the world will try—with, judging from previous efforts , little success—to join them; to offer them advice; to chastise them for policies which most of the world’s peoples see as helping to keep them repressed; to stand up and say “we are not going away. We will continue to protest against ‘business as usual’ so long as we see that business as oppressive to poor countries, and poor people in every country.”

Subcomandante Marcos, in a meeting held in the mountains of the southern state of Chiapas in mid-August, declared that globalism is the chief enemy of indigenous autonomy and therefore of all native peoples. While he stopped short of saying he—or other leaders of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation—would attend, he did make it clear that all who are Zapatista in their hearts are anti-globalist in their actions.

Joe Bovee, just out of jail for leading a farmers’ attack against globalist policies which are impoverishing French farmers, held a “pre-Cancún” rally and camp-out attended by 150,000 Frenchmen. U.S. activists have been organizing for months: in February, we ran into a couple from the Cities on Isla Mujeres, a 20-minute ferry ride from Cancún, who were there scouting out possible housing for protesters. It looks like it’s going to be quite a crowd.

On the other side, there will be phalanxes of cops of all levels and descriptions. There will be private cops hired by the hotels; “police specials”— simple thugs—hired to supplement the regular city police when the crowds get too big; plain, motorized, and riot-control-trained city cops; similarly varied state police, and several different constituencies of federales, from ministerial (the treasury, the office of the attorney general, tourism bureau, and others each have their own force) to the elite “flash corps” of the Preventative Police; and the military. They will be there to prevent the crowds from disrupting the conference. They have had lots of experience at suppressing dissent when it gets too noisy and too proximate.

At the last big conference of “world financial leaders” held in Monterrey a few years ago, the city erected a huge fence—not just to keep out the protesters, but to keep them out of sight of the delegates. This ought to be dead easy in Cancún, as most of the luxury hotels are located on a peninsula of landfill that juts out into the bay. On the other hand, protesters have gotten much more sophisticated since Seattle, both politically and strategically, so the outcome of Cancún 2003 is by no means certain.

If you are planning to go, here is my advice to you: September is a hot month on the Caribbean coast. Heat stroke and sunburn can be serious problems along with dehydration. Wear light clothing that “breathes” (if you can afford it), take along some sunscreen and a good mosquito repellant, and carry—and drink—purified water at all times. Remember that Mexican law is not as cut-and-dried as, say, Canadian law, and try especially hard not to provoke the “specials,” they are real “thumpers.” Eat lots of chile and lime, both natural inhibitors of “animales” (bad stomach flora), carry your own toilet paper. Laugh as much as you can. Let me know how it goes.