Dozens of people were injured yesterday in clashes between Mexican police and anti-globalisation protestors in Cancun. The clashes marked the end of a two-day meeting of the World Economic Forum, as the Mexican President, Vicente Fox, closed the gathering with a call for a "democratisation of markets", so that globalisation should benefit everyone, not just a chosen few.
Police were reported to have beaten protesters and reporters violently in two separate incidents. Red Cross officials reported that eight people were injured in the clashes, while organisers put the number at 30. Several of the protesters dropped their pants before trying to force their way through police barricades that were set up to prevent demonstrators reaching the hotel hosting the meeting. Thirty more protestors were arrested after taking their clothes off on a beach in front of the hotel. Police reportedly beat reporters with batons on the beach. About 500 people had initially taken part in the demonstration, but the majority of them were dispersed after police in full riot gear halted the protest.
Inside the hotel, President Fox praised what he called the "new, democratic and socially just Mexico". He also called for a more socially responsible international economic system. "We see globalisation as an opportunity, but we want a globalisation with human quality and environmental quality," he told the 450 forum participants.
In a separate development, the continuing tour of Mexico by the National Zapatista Liberation Army reached the city of Puebla. Following his attacks on Mexico's non-ethnic business and political establishment of the past days, Subcomandante Marcos called on Mexicans of all ethnic backgrounds to join the cause of the country's ethnic Indians. The 24 EZLN rebel leaders, along with thousands of supporters, started a two-week, 12-state tour to the capital on Saturday night.
Marcos told a crowd of several thousand in Puebla central plaza yesterday that dignity for the indigenous does not mean dominating the other who is not indigenous. "The march for indigenous dignity must be a march of indigenous and non-indigenous," said the masked rebel leader. "Only thus can we build a house called the world in which all of us fit, where all are equal and each one different."
