CINCINNATI, OH
Scripps Howard WCPO TV (relayed ny John Zeh, OVIMC)

TABD Conference, Protests End
Reported by: Valerie Miller, WCPO TV 9 (Scripps Howard)

Demonstrators held rallies at Fountain Square and along other streets in downtown against the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue conference.

Protestors planning a peaceful demonstration found a police checkpoint at Fountain Square. Officers searched everyone.

The demonstrators were held behind barriers and police were everywhere.

Police arrested several protesters Saturday, and Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken said he was pleased with the police response.

The rally included a parade of pigs labeled for corporations. Protestors said business leaders gathering in downtown for the TABD conference are responsible for weak regulations.

"We lose environmental protection, worker safety protection, child protection," said Audrey Mayer of Covington.

From Fountain Square, protestors wanted to form a single file picket to drop off the pigs at several street corners. Police refused.

The group wanted to move around town and we weren't prepared for that," said Police Chief Tom Streicher. "We told them 'No'. If we are not prepared for it and there are no permits for it, it becomes a significant disruption in town."

The procession moved up Vine Street to the Kroger building for the second planned demonstration.

Along the way police were visible at every corner. Officers followed on foot and on horseback. After yesterday's few outbursts of vandalism and violence, police were keeping tight control.

The protestors took a seat outside Kroger headquarters. When the final pig was put in place outside the Chiquita building, the peaceful protest was over. The crowd was not ready to leave.

Officers arrested a total of 47 people Saturday evening for disorderly conduct after they refused to clear downtown streets. That brings the total of arrests this weekend to 56.

Police started taking people into custody a few hours after the group's 3-p.m. demonstration permit expired.

The protestors said they simply want to call attention to corporations' treatment of workers.

"We're fighting for everyone in the world. We're fighting for justice. We're fighting for peace," said one protestor. "They're so many people in the world … they don't have anything to eat."

Police had to escorted members of the transatlantic business dialogue from the downtown conference site to a riverboat cruise in Covington.

TABD Conference Wraps Up

While protesters took to the streets, inside the Omni the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue conference wrapped up.

The group of 120 CEO's and US and European government officials worked over the past two days to break down trade barriers across the Atlantic.

There was mention of the protestors during a news conference Saturday.

The US Commerce Deputy Secretary wanted the protestors to know that the TABD said it opens doors for American business owners to expand overseas.

"We have produced jobs. We've improved our technology, our ability to communicate with each other and lowered the decibel of our disputes," said US Commerce Deputy Secretary Robert Mallett. "That is what the TABD is meant to do."

A TABD report said trade between Europe and the US produces more than seven million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.

MORE, video, pix:
https://www.cincinow.com/news/topstory1.shtml

"Blurred Vision - Maurya Orr"

All times EST and approximate.

Maurya Orr

As of Saturday afternoon there have been four offical arrests as a results of Friday's actions. All four were arraigned and their bails have been set.

• Collin Moore - Rioting - $5,000
• Clifford Bennet - Obstructing Justice & Seriou Bodily Injury to a Police Officer - $10,000
• Ryan Salisbury - Rioting - $50,000
• Michael Lasbay - Criminal Tresspassing, Obstructing Offness, & Criminal Mischief - $7,500 ($2,500 for each charge)

Ryan Sailsbury will have another arraignment Monday at 9am at the Courthouse in room B.All protestors that have been arrested will have hearings Wednesday morning at 9am in Courtroom 178.

12:45pm - Hundreds of protesters at Fountain Square were stoped by police officers and searched. The police claimed that they were searching for weapons in the bags of the protesters. The protesters then tried to cross the street and march around the Omni Hotel but the police banned them from marching.

1pm - The protesters headed down Vine St. and started towards the Kroger Building. There were around 500 people in the march. The police then rounded protesters up and refused them to cross the street to the Kroger building. The police were releasing the activists in groups of 2-4 people.

2:30 - The protesters marched back towards Fountain Square. The count of protesters ranged between 600 and 750 people. When the protesters came back to the square they proceeded to march around the Omni Hotel and then on to the Chiquita Headquaters. The police used CS Spray to ward off some of the protesters and observers while they were taken some of the protesters into custody. Of those taken into custody, two of the people were non-protesters. One was a Legal Observer, Carol, and the other an IMC videographer, Lisa. Those with Pig puppets were told to remove the sticks, as those could be used as weapons according to the police.

There have been five offical arrests so far today. 1 for disorderly conduct and four for mask violation. Although witnesses say they saw the activists remove their masks, the police still arrested them. There is an investigation on one activist with a possible charge of criminal destruction of property. Reports are also coming in that protesters not giving their names to the police are also being taken into custody.

A local call came in at 3:45 today reporting that two of the activists arrested earlier this afternoon during the the protest march around Vine St. have bails set for them at $200,000 each. It is not clear at this time who the activists are or what they are charged with at this time. If you can help out with bail in any way please write to legal@N16.org

11:30 : The permitted rally at Sawyer Point begins a march along the route through downtown, circling the Omni-Netherland, where the TABD meetings are being held.

Noon : The march, which peaked at between 1000-1500 people, reaches the Fountian Sq., where more speakers are heard, and a 'New Kids on the Black Bloc' performance is seen.

1:30 : The rally breaks up and a new march begins back toward Sawyer Point.

1:45 : A group of 200-300 Black Bloc and other activists, which has split from the main march, approaches 5th and Vine, between Fountain Sq. and the Omni. Some are carrying police barricades. Others appropriate more barricades as they are being deployed, and establish a line across the intersection to keep the police at bay.

2:00 : The crowd begins to move east from the Omni as police reinforcements are deployed around the activist's barricades. At the next intersection, the crowd turns south toward 4th. They then march back toward Vine and the Omni. A small scuffle with police breaks out at 4th and Vine, and two protesters are taken into custody. One escapes. The other, who is bleeding from the mouth, is held down by four police while another sprays CS spray into his open mouth and eyes. The rest of the group at this intersection, numbering in the dozens, is separated from the main march and breifly detained.

For about the next hour, this separate group is slowly forced by police back toward Sawyer Pt. A few blocks north of the point, the group is corraled, broken up into groups of four or less, and allowed to leave one at a time. They are ordered to keep moving toward the Point and not reassemble on pain of arrest. At this point, the crowd dispersed.

At the same time, reports came in of the use of tear gas and rubber bullits on the the rest of the group. All told, three arrests were made during the aftermath of the march. They have been charged with riot, which is disorderly conduct in a group of five or more. No hospitalizations were made.

Later in the afternoon, two banner hangs took place on Fountain Sq. One addressed racist comments made by a city councilperson, and the other was just a change of venue for a banner which went up during the rally on the Square. It read "No God, No State, No War, No Hate." A young man moved it from a skywalk over 5th, where it had been for several hours, to the fountain. Several riot police appeared from around the corner, chased him down, and arrested him as well. The police would not comment on what charges he might face.

9pm, Thursday, Josh Robinson reporting from outdside the Cincinnati Music Hall in Cincinnati. Around 8:45 two men were escouted out of the Cincinnati Music Hall by officers. Reportedly, the two men let a banner fall from inside the Music Hall where TABD deligates were going to watch a performance. The banner read "End Corprate Rule".
The two men then went on to give a speech to the entire audience whjy the participants of the TABD were wrong for what they were doing with Globalization. The ment were then apperhended by appromimatly 18 police officers. They were then put into a van which is still sitting outside the performance hall.

Relayed by Maurya Orr

A local call came in around 10:15 pm on Thursday night updating the status of the two men that were arrested after dropping a banner during a performance in Cincinnati Music Hall that the TABD delegates were attending.
The two men, Brian Cairns and Colen P. Cairns, were charged with criminal tresspassing and disorderly conduct. They have been taken to the Justice Center and are attempting to obtain release on bail. Please write checks to Ohio Valley Independent Media Center with the word 'Bail' in the memo line.

We do not know how much the bail is set at. Excess money will be donated to other legal costs.

Send checks to Ohio Valley Independent Media c/o Media Bridges
2114 Reading Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45202

Stay with Ohio Valley IMC for the lastest updates with TABD.

relayed by
Maurya Orr

The live audio webcast of our continuing coverage of the TABD meeting and associated protests is now up and running, and will be for the rest of the week.

For news, music, and rambling tirades, click here!

To call in live reports or comments, dial (513) 651-4171. You will reach Media Bridges, the organization which is hosting us this week. Ask for the radio room, and we will patch you through live to the whole world!

BREAKING NEWS:

by Josh Robinson

9:00 AM: IMC has recieved a report of a banner hang on a billboard over Interstate 71 in downtown Cincinnati. A cameraperson has been dispatched.
Noon: The opening press conference for CHE-2000, one of the groups organizing the actions this week, took place at fountain square. Approxamately 500 people attended the event, which featured breif speechs from many of the speakers scheduled to appear at the teach-in later tonight (see below).
1:00 PM A representative of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, who spoke at the press conference, led most of the crowd on a march several blocks up the street to the headquarters of Kroger, which owns hundreds of supermarkets nationwide. They picketed the building to demand that Kroger stores pull Mt. Olive products from their shelves. Mt. Olive, which produces pickles, is accused of substandard labor practices.

UPCOMING EVENTS

7-10 PM: Globalization Teach-In at the Cathedral of St. Peter In Chains, 325 W. 8th St. (at Plum)
Featuring: Lori Wallach, Public Citizen; Ron Blackwell, the AFL-CIO; Atherton Martin, Carribean banana farmer; Baldemar Velasquez, Farm Labor Organizing Committee; and Dan Seligman, Sierra Club.

3 Nov 2000

Dave Cooper

More than two weeks after the 250-million gallon coal sludge "spill" from the Martin County Coal Company's mountaintop removal site in eastern Kentucky, cleanup efforts and national media coverage are still inadequate.

Patty Draus and I spent Sunday afternoon (10/22) on Wolf Creek and Coldwater Creek in Martin County taking pictures of the sludge spill and talking to people involved in the cleanup. Also we talked to a homeowner on Wolf Creek who had her backyard coated in sludge. We got some good pictures. I was totally unprepared for the extent of the damage. This is a major environmental catastrophe. The Big Sandy is black all the way from Catlettsburg to the headwaters. There is a goo ranging from several inches to several feet thick along the entire length of the two smaller Martin County streams. Authorities are blocking the road so that no "outsiders" including the news media can have access and see the extent of the devastation.

A few observations: It would not be an overstatement to state that every living thing in the two smaller streams is now dead. Don't know about the Big Sandy, I would guess its in serious trouble A cleanup worker (vacuum truck operator) got trapped in the creek bed earlier this week and was buried up to his chest, its like quicksand. He got stuck and was yelling for help and some other workers pulled him out. He said his feet never touched the bottom and he would have sunk in the quicksand if he hadn't been rescued.

They are digging pits along the stream and vacuuming up the sludge from the creek and dumping it in these pits which are about 1-2 acres and 10 feet deep. We saw at least five of these pits. They look kind of like hog lagoons, no liner of course. They just started this on Sunday. Supposedly they will treat the sludge in the pits with emulsifiers and then pump the clean water back into the stream and haul off the sludge. Probably to another sludge pond somewhere. I would expect this cleanup to got on for at least a year at the rate they are going. It is a huge mess and their efforts aren't even making a dent.

Ohio River will be impacted for months in my opinion. We talked to one homeowner on Wolf Creek, which has less damage than Coldwater Fork (two separate watersheds affected - both creeks flow together in Inez). She stated that they had been calling the coal company for about a week and they wouldn't even talk to her, they are too busy on Coldwater Creek. About 2/3 of her backyard is coated in sludge, at least 6" deep and several feet deep in places. The sludge pulls the boots off your feet. Homeowners do not appear to be organized yet or have any idea what to do. Supposedly damage is much worse on Coldwater Fork, but they wouldn't let us back there. Martin County Judge Executive has closed the 2 roads leading to spill. We navigated around using the County Map Atlas. It is about 3 hour drive from Lexington using the Mountain Parkway.

News media from Cincinnati now covering the spill, haven't seen national coverage yet. We need to bring national attention to this spill. The cleanup operation looks just as gooey and messy as Exxon Valdez. Very dramatic photos are possible, would make great TV. One of the Cincinnati reporters was going to put on waders and climb into the creek until we told her about the quicksand effect. We need to alert people to stay out of the creek, I think it is very dangerous. The goo is slippery and slimy.

Homeowner along Wolf Creek said that they were lucky only 10 percent of the pond drained out (250 million gallons out of 2 billion). She felt they would have been killed if the whole pond had drained out. You can see the high "water" mark (black line) on the trees along the creek bank, about 3-5 feet above current level. There is a good photo on the front of this weeks Martin County "Mountain Citizen" paper showing a stretch of creek, it looks paved black and wide as an interstate.

According to Martin County paper, this is not the first spill at this particular sludge pond, it happened before in 1994. Have more details if you need them. Animal tracks in the goo leading to the creek - I imagine that a great number of raccoons, possums, etc, have gotten stuck in the goo like the La Brea tar pits in California. Any animal that drank from the creek would probably die. The water is totally black. The sludge has settled in the creek bed several feet thick and the water just makes a little channel in the muck and flows on top of the sludge.

They are never going to get this all cleaned up. They are using booms, hay bales, and vacuum trucks, building temporary rock dams to try and create "settling ponds". Water utilities are going to have to deal with this residual sediment for months if not years. They are draining a reservoir in Inez that will only last about a month, after that where are they going to get their water?

For more information contact:
Suzanne Webb powerofthepeople@yahoo.com
Dave Cooper at DSCOOPER1@mmm.com
Hilary L. Hopper at hlhopper@prodigy.net

Check out Appalshop's reports on the web!
https://www.appalshop.org/cmi/