Activists losing faith in WTO inquiry that meets in private

When a small group of activists told Seattle City Council members they're losing confidence in their investigation of last year's World Trade Organization conference, it pointed to a dilemma investigators have faced throughout the inquiry:

How to preserve the privacy involved in conducting an investigation, while keeping faith with the public.

Much of the suspicion about the amount of light the council will shed on last fall's debacle comes from the fact that arguably the most important of the three citizen panels involved in the inquiry has been doing its work in the dark.

The panel looking into the events of WTO week -- including police use of tear gas and the imposition of the "no protest zone" -- usually meets behind closed doors. Meanwhile, the other two panels -- looking into how the WTO was invited here and the city's preparations for the conference -- have largely met in public.

At a City Council meeting yesterday, about 20 activists representing Capitol Hill residents, churches and liberal organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild carried signs with messages such as, "Where is Our Full Public Disclosure?"

They complained that panel members are getting a one-sided perspective on what transpired on Seattle's gas-filled streets because they seem to be interviewing police and government officials, but not activists. Their concern is that the panel will not delve deeply into whether police actions violated citizens' rights.

But because the panel has not met in public, the activists don't know who's been interviewed, said Councilman Jim Compton, a member of the panel. He said his group is examining all the questions raised by activists.

Compton said police officers and others refuse to meet publicly.

"Some interviews could not have been done in front of the public because they would not have been as candid as they were," he said.

Compton noted that the panel has determined that warnings given by police before they discharged tear gas were "flawed, to say the least."

And lest anyone think the group will not take constitutional issues seriously, Compton noted that panelists include Eric Schnapper, a noted civil rights attorney, and Tim Burgess, chairman of the city's Ethics and Elections Commission.

P-I reporter Kery Murakami can be reached at 206-448-8029 or kerymurakami@seattle-pi.com