Keith McHenry

Keith flew to Mexico City and met up with the Food Not Bombs from Mexico City. He left for Cancun with the student caravan, which took 53 hours by bus.

He knew very little Spanish, but many people knew passable English; many were bilingual. The group was primarily made of anarchists that attended Autonomous University in Mexico City. He found that their high level of school spirit was extremely unusual for anarchists. The groups of about 30 people stayed in a park north of Palapas, except for one rainy night he spent on the rood of he convergence center.

Keith was very interested in the various direct actions that were being planned to get over the fence and was involved in planning these with the other anarchists. He worked on getting objects with the black bloc such as large metal cans for drumming, and, in addition, he was very much involved with the Food Not Bombs at Cancun, connecting sources for the food.

About half of the Food Not Bombs members were from Australia and the other half were from Mexico and the US, with one person from Brazil. Keith met with the campesinos to get food, which they primarily got from little bakeries and produce stands. A small amount of food was dumpstered from restaurants in town. The camepesino union had brought food and Food Not Bombs bought food as well. Food Not Bombs rented a house that was far out and hard to find.

Keith and other Food Not Bombs members organized an action outside the Ritz Carlton on the Hotel Zone. They went right up to the Ritz Carlton before the WTO started and began serving food as the delegates were coming in. Some cops were playing ‘good cops’ and trying to negotiate, and the group eventually left on the large WTO busses after getting attention from the media.

‘The Australians had sold everything they owned to come [to Cancun].’

‘The one Brazilian cook, when we were cutting vegetables, would get so excited that he would translate everything I was saying into Portugese for the Mexicans until he realized that they couldn’t understand.’

The Food Not Bombs also had problems with pink eye and kept losing cooks to it. They were advised that they could transmit pink eye through the food, and tried to keep that down, so would have to excuse people with pink eye from working on the food. Keith himself got pink eye. In addition, he found that his fibriomyalgia was acting up.

Keith sometimes used his whiteness to go to the Best Western and take a bath by swimming in the pool.

Keith believed that the protests were often too controlled by the campesinos’ union. He remembered that every time the Mexican punks and others would try to take down the fence, they would get negative feedback. He did not appreciate that the action were all about being symbolic , and never seemed to be about getting through the fence and going through. For example., the campesinos’ union blocked an action where protestors would block the roads coming out of the airport. Keith believed that such an action would be easy to pull off as well as successful in actual terms of halting the talks. He found the way that the campesinos were acting to be similar to ANSWER (Act Now to Stop Racism and End War, a Stalinist group that has had a lot of control over the recent anti-war movement), in that they were ‘pretending to be militant.’

It is interesting to note that since Keith was spending his time with the Mexican punks his comments might have more closely reflected their thoughts and perceptions at the time.

Keith also noted that the Koreans he talked to were upset about the immense amount of praying that was going on for Lee.

Keith wondered why the Black Bloc kept getting moved to he back, and attributed to other groups waiting to avert direct action. He talked about how the black block didn’t keep their own autonomy.

He talked about his perception that there was a core group of people that was perhaps connected to the ***Prix******** government, and mentioned that he thought that there was more than one campesiono union with more than one vision. He thought that perhaps the unions had a directive not to have real disruption lest they have a problem with their business or other supporters. There were some more liberal and some mo0re radical factions. He felt that there were similar schisms within the Koreans, where different groups had different ideas about what actions should be taken. He saw two women among the campesionos who always seemed to be acting in the favor of the government. Keith mentioned again that he was disappointed that he felt the actions were controlled by a relatively small group of people.

Keith ended up missing the Pagan action because he had to clean his sleeping bag.

He took a commercial bus back when he left on the 16^th.

Keith has been disappointed that he has lost contact with a potential Food Not Bombs group in Mazatlan. He has better connections with Guadalajara, Monterey, and Mexico City. He wants to organize a speaking tour into Mexico.

He is pleased because as he has gone around the world he has found more chapters of Food Not Bombs than he previously knew of. He believes that the success of Food Not Bombs as a movement is primarily because it is not dependant upon centralized leaders or headquarters. He also thinks that the hands on process of doing Food Not Bombs is far more inspiring than marching with banners. He sees Food Not Bombs as a vehicle for people to become more interested in anarchism. He also feels that it is useful that the whole emphasis of the Food Not Bombs website is all about starting Food Not Bombs groups, and not sending money to the national organization. Ideas of Food Not Bombs are also transmitted by word of mouth. For example, Keith recounted the story of the Poland Food Not Bombs, which was founded after tone member read about the idea in a zine. He put two and two together and started doing it’. He talked about the connections between punk rock and Food Not Bombs, and mentioned how Food Not Bombs was often listed in the liner notes of punk rock records. Keith knows of Food Not Bombs chapters in the Arab world, in Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, and in other places all over the world.

During the Cancun actions, he walked around with a red hat and a banner and he found that many of the participants were excited to stop him and tell him about their own Food Not Bombs.

During the Tuesday action, Keith almost got hit by some rocks. When Lee committed suicide, Keith was able to see but did not know what was happening. His medic friend Athene actually carried Lee to the ambulance but even she did no know what had happened until later.