On November 30, 1999, arguably one of the greatest protest in the modern era occurred in the city of Seattle. Groups from all different backgrounds, from students to labor unions to religious groups to anarchist, joined on this day in a group to protest the annual meetings of the World Trade Organization.

In the modern age, the world is linked together through economy. Countries from all over the world established trade with each other to advance their economy. In the process, they hope to receive products and resources not available to them but more importantly, they seek to increase the wealth of their business and their nation.

A particular problem that arises with global trade is when under developed countries either join or forcibly enter global trade practices. The modern industrial giants of the world force these under developed countries to sell them their natural resources to them for a fraction of their worth. Exploiting their developing economy and having an end result of eternal poverty for these nations and while the modern countries are greeted with prosperity and wealth.

The World Trade Organization main goal is to supervise international trade. Its primary responsibility is negotiating new trade agreements between countries in order to prevent exploitation of a countries economy by a more powerful country.

However, the WTO policies are different than from their original goals of the organization. The WTO has a known bias towards big business, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The countries that the WTO was created to protect are being destroyed by the organization. Ever since the creation of the WTO in 1995, the world has seen more poverty in third world nations than ever before, while others become richer everyday.

The Seattle protest was designed to disrupt the annual meetings of the WTO and to show their disregard to the organization’s policies. These protesters are protected by the fourth amendment of the constitution. However, on N30 these rights were violated immensely as the city tried to shut down the protesters.

Starting a peaceful protest the violence erupted after the Seattle police tried to open up key intersections that were blocking the entrance to the conference location. The police resorted to pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the protest. The police actions injured thousands while many were arrested.

In retaliation of the police actions anarchist formed together creating the black bloc, which started smashing windows, flipping police vehicles, and blocking intersections with lit dumpsters and cars. This started a huge riot in which thousands of protesters joined forces with the anarchist.

Over the next few days, the protest continued with over 600 people arrested and thousands injured from police activities. In the end, the protest achieved their objective of disrupting the WTO conference and give world support to everyone in all countries that are living in poverty because the WTO.

The Battle of Seattle is a clear link that in order to stop injustice throughout the world people must unit and take action against those who put profit over people and destroy humanity just to make a quick dollar.