Citizents Shut Down Research Triangle Park in North Carolina

Submitted by Greg:

Today, June 10th, 2004 concerned individuals shut down access to Research Triangle Park to protest the silencing of dissent, the destruction of the environment, and the undermining of democracy by corporate and government interests. This act of civil disobedience coincides with the final day of the G8 meetings on Sea Island in Georgia. At these meetings, a few heads of state will secretly decide the fate of billions, maintaining global equality and perpetual war. To stifle free speech against this summit, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on security and a state of emergency has been declared.

Research Triangle Park is host to many corporations that are complicit in these destructive dealings. Lockheed Martin is one of the largest private beneficiaries of the war in Iraq; the Research Triangle Institute has been hired by the U.S. government to set up regional and city governments in occupied Iraq. Along with their neighbors Dyncorp and others, these corporations reap power and profits from conflicts such as the Iraq war while ordinary people suffer and democracy is suppressed. Dupont, also located in Research Triangle Park, is one of the top five polluters in the United States. Syngenta is the largest agribusiness company in the world, putting farming families out of business and off their land. GlaxoSmithKline profits from the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and consistently chooses money over the health of communities. Together, all these corporations are representative of the corporate power base that controls our world today; the leaders at the G8 meetings are only its figureheads.

We want to live in a sustainable, just society in which people are free to speak their minds, cooperate with one another, and coexist with the environment. Our vision of democracy extends from the political to the economic: individuals and communities must be the ones to make all decisions concerning their lives, and must share access to the resources that make these decisions possible. This starts today with ordinary people standing up and saying no to the concentration of power in the hands of the elite.