Interview with DN! Producer Ana Nogueira on Miami FTAA Protests

[gristy]

Nogueira was among 250 Arrested on Friday.

Here is a snip. Go here to read the whole transcript. Miami PD soldiers, embedded journalists, blocking protesters from dispersing. It's all pretty chilling.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you wearing your press ID?

ANA NOGUEIRA: I was wearing my press ID, and I had my camera and they pretty much left me alone, even though they were pushing us around a lot. They did not spray me directly. They sprayed my clothes but not my face, like they did with other protesters. They weren't pushing me down onto the ground as hard as they were pushing other protesters down. But they forced us against a fence, a chain-link fence and push so hard that the fence came down and we fall on top of each other and, again, they pulled out the pepper spray and they were kind of playing cat and mouse with us. They would tell us to get up and walk away and then push us down to the ground again and then get up and walk away and push us down. Eventually they arrested us one by one. Again, as I said, they didn't know what to do with me. One officer seemed uncertain as to whether he should arrest me or not until the other officers around him said she's not with us, she's not with us, and they immediately arrested me.

AMY GOODMAN: What does that is mean?

ANA NOGUEIRA: It could mean one of two things. It's either that I'm not an undercover police officer with the protesters using a camera because it certainly seemed that there were some of those around. And actually I have some footage of them with the cops earlier on but -- or it could mean I'm not embedded with the police department. there were embedded reporters who had almost full-on riot gear on as well and I believe Jeremy witnessed an occasion where an embedded reporter even hit a protester himself.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let's talk about this. This is very serious issue. Again, not talk about reporters embedded in the front lines in the troops in Iraq, but now adopting that policy, both, we see the militarization of police and the same policies that the military uses with reporters. I guess it worked very well in Iraq. Jeremy, can you talk about this process of -- and it may surprise many right now to hear -- they're actually talking about and practiced in Miami, embedding of reporters in the police department.

[G_j]

1. truly frightening

they see it as a war and 'we the people' are the enemy.

[Scott Lee]

3. Making war against the American people is treason

And I believe still carries the severest punishment (death).

[Say_What]

5. Not in the Banana Republic of Miami, apparently...

:wtf:

[DUreader]

2. kick

[Say_What]

4. Also on was Tom Hayden activist from WAY back who said that the Miami

military effect was probably gonna happen all over the country if people didn't start to speak up.

You probably have to listen to catch Tom--definitely worth it. Here's another thing that caught my attention:

JEREMY SCAHILL: ...One is, as Ana mentioned, a photographer for the "Miami Herald," who was embedded with the -- it's hard to call them police -- I would say soldiers that were in the streets of Miami. And in fact, a lot of the budget for Miami came from this $8.5 million that was allocated to Miami from the $87 billion Iraq spending bill. But a "Miami Herald" photographer got separated from his unit in the Miami police department and ended up on the dangerous side of the lines with the unarmed protesters and he did not like the fact that kids in the protest had locked arms and were essentially trying to hold the line outside of the inner continental hotel where the FTAA ministerial talks were happening. Protesters were right near there and he was furious that he had gotten separated, was trying to get back through and the kids just wouldn't move out of the way. The kids said, no, these are our streets and we're staying here and the "Miami Herald" photographer just starts hitting a kid in the back of his head, like punching him. You know, we were filming. I was there with John Hamilton from the “Worker's Independent News Service” and we were filming this and the kid kind of turns around and pushes the guy and says, back off. And the guy had to be restrained by his colleagues because he was going to go ballistic on demonstrators that he was supposed to be covering....

[G_j]

6. Hayden on Miami,

ARRESTING THE FUTURE
Tom Hayden, AlterNet

Even as FTAA protestors and trade ministers poured out of town in droves, the city's Robo-Cops continued to demonstrate the 'Miami model' of suppression -- with pepper spray, rubber bullets and drawn weapons.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17246
--------------

an earlier report from Hayden,
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17234

Miami Vice
November 20, 200
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a related article
by Jim Defede,

He Respected the Badge, But `Not in Miami´
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/112403I.shtml

[G_j]

7. kick