Miami alert as Americas Free Trade talks start

Thursday, November 20, 2003

MIAMI, USA (AFP): Rows of police officers stood guard around central Miami on Wednesday as tens of thousands of anti-globalization activists prepared for protests during free trade talks by officials from across North and South America.

Police surrounded a six-block downtown area with barricade fences and roadblocks as mid-level trade officials worked on details of the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement.

Trade ministers from every country in the Americas, except Cuba, will meet Thursday and Friday at a hotel within the protected area to work on the plan for a pan-American free market by 2005.

The massive security operation, which involves some 2,500 police, is being funded by an 8.5 million dollar federal grant and was part of the 87.5 billion dollar military and aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan approved November 3.

Miami police say they are trying to avoid the violence that shook meetings of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999 and in Cancun, Mexico, in September.

As of Wednesday, only two people had been arrested on minor charges, said Miami police spokeswoman Liz Calzadilla. "Everything is calm so far," she said. The protestors "have been noisy, but not violent."

There were police on horseback, on bicycles, on foot and in vehicles patrolling the downtown area. Police in light boats guarded the coastline and waterways.

Some officers stood guard in full body armor, wearing helmets and clutching large shields. Others wore straw hats and short-sleeve shirts, and wielded long wooden clubs.

There were Miami city cops, Florida state patrolmen, US Coast Guard, US Marshals -- more than 40 law enforcement agencies in all.

Police even have a fire engine on loan to use, if necessary, as a water cannon on any rowdy protestors.

"Police all over the place, helicopters buzzing at all times -- this is like a state of siege," complained Edgardo Robles, who works at one of the myriad of small stores near the fenced off area. Many have been close since Monday.

Miami Police Chief John Timoney has experience with riots -- he was police commissioner of Philadelphia in 2000, when protestors clashed with police during the Republican National Convention.

"We're well prepared and well trained," he said just ahead of the event. "But I guarantee you (the protestors) will come up with something we haven't seen before."

The city of Miami is also playing a delicate balancing act, for Florida Governor Jeb Bush and city officials want the FTAA's future headquarters to be built here. "We are the gateway to the Americas," Bush said Tuesday, as he made his pitch to trade officials.

Anti-globalization activists have vowed that tens of thousands of protesters will be present to vent their anger at the trade agreement, mostly converging Thursday and Friday.

On Tuesday some 300 members of a group called Root Cause staged a noisy and colorful march to a downtown park.

But thousands more are already converging in Miami, including the AFL-CIO, one of the largest union umbrella organizations in the United States.

AFL-CIO officials say some 20,000 members have arrived from as far away as the northern state of Minnesota, and will participate in rallies Thursday and Friday. 

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