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Wednesday, November 19, 2003 |
Anti-FTAA protests begin in Miami amidst police harassment
Monday kicked off the week of negotiations and protests on the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Miami, Florida. Business leaders gathered Monday for the American Business Forum in the Hyatt Regency in downtown Miami for three days of planning how to pressure the FTAA toward preserving corporate interests. Police from all over the country have arrived to supplement the already massive presence of city police, sheriffs, homeland security agents and the FBI. Before the protests even began, activists and reporters have been singled out, targeted, and followed on a regular basis, both by bicycle and by vehicle. In addition, at least 12 activists have been arrested for being on city sidewalks.
But despite the intimidation campaign by the police and media in Miami, support for the protest has been growing, and activists have created a non-hierarchical organizational and logistical structure that emulates the society they say they would like to create.
Meanwhile, inside the walled-in fortress of downtown Miami, trade negotiators have already hit bumps that may disrupt or even de-rail this week's talks. While the US had hoped to avoid controversy by pushing for a scaled-down version of the FTAA that avoided contentious issues like agricultural dumping and intellectual property, officials from Canada, Chile and several other nations disapprove of this idea, said negotiators on Sunday.
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