Summit hit by violent protests

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina


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From correspondents in Mar Del Plata
November 05, 2005

THE 34-nation Summit of the Americas opened here overnight with major, violent protests against the presence of US President George W. Bush and his free trade agenda.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators throwing stones and molotov cocktails at security forces some 600 metres from the hotel where leaders were meeting in this southern beach resort.
Hundreds of protesters in ski-masks confronted police as a larger group of thousands of peaceful demonstrators rallied at a football stadium to voice their anger at US policies.

"Bush, fascist, you are a terrorist," protestors shouted, as they packed rainy streets in a rally through the streets.

The US leader acknowledged the tensions during a meeting with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. "It's not easy to host all these countries. It's particularly not easy to host, perhaps me," said Bush who is fending off record low popularity at home as well as abroad.

Among anti-US activists in Mar del Plata were Nobel Peace Prize holder Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the populist frontrunner in Bolivia's presidential race, Evo Morales, and Argentine football hero Diego Maradona.

Maradona called Bush "human rubbish" as he travelled to Mar del Plata from Buenos Aires in a special train.

The soccer legend donned a "Stop Bush" T-shirt as he rode into Mar del Plata just before dawn.

Strikes and protests against Bush were staged in cities across Argentina. Organisers said several hundred thousand people took part.

At the southern city of Neuquen, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse demonstrators who threw eggs and stones at a Blockbuster video store, part of a US-owned chain.

In Buenos Aires, protesters covered the Obelisk, the capital's central monument, with a banner declaring "Bush Out". Demonstrators burned a US flag nearby.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a virulent critic of the United States, addressed a rally in the football stadium before joining the leaders at the summit.

President Chavez is a leftist ally of Cuba's President Fidel Castro, the only Americas leader not invited to the event. Chavez has strongly opposed the US-inspired Free Trade Area of the Americas.

On arrival, Chavez said "the FTAA is dead and we are going to bury it here."

The summit nations failed to agree a declaration that would have backed the proposed free trade area. Instead, ministers adopted a compromise calling for addressing poverty and unemployment.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim confirmed that his country, along with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, opposed fixing a date for the resumption of negotiations on the FTAA.

The United States, as well as Mexico, Canada and Central American governments had pushed for negotiations on the project to resume in 2006.

Bush acknowledged this week that efforts to create the FTAA were "stalled" but the United States still wants to push a free trade agenda with other American countries.

The vast Western Hemisphere is divided with Canada and the United States among the richest nations in the world, while some 220 million of Latin America's 512 million residents live in poverty.

Some 96 million people in the region survive on less than one dollar per day, according to the United Nations.

Many observers fear mounting tensions between the Venezuelan leader and the US administration will divert attention at the summit.

While Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, insisted that the summit was "not about Hugo Chavez," other US officials have underscored the two nations' differences.

"Our respective governments have very different visions for the hemisphere," said Tom Shannon, the chief US diplomat for the Western Hemisphere.

Shannon said Bush would work at the summit on a "positive agenda" to create jobs and "help the poor and traditionally marginalized group fully join the economic life of their countries.

"For our point of view, for the region to get the kind of growth it needs, to really begin to address some of the social problems... it needs a stronger trade base," he said.

The counter summit organised by demonstrators, which ended late Thursday, adopted a statement opposing the FTAA and Bush. It called Bush "the world's biggest warmonger".

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