Mostly peaceful marchers occasionally lock horns with Miami police as they speak out against a free trade proposal.
By TAMARA LUSH
Published November 21, 2003
[Times photo: John Pendygraft]
Young protesters clash with riot police Thursday in downtown Miami during a day of marches punctuated by violence. Protesters were as angry at the extraordinary show of police power as they were at the prospect of the FTAA.
[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
Miami police in full riot gear hold formation Thursday afternoon amid clouds of tear gas near Bayfront Park in Miami.
MIAMI - A peaceful march against the world's largest proposed free trade area was punctuated Thursday by violent clashes as thousands of police in riot gear used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to subdue hundreds of protesters.
At least 60 people were arrested during the mayhem, mostly self-proclaimed anarchists here to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Forty protesters and two police officers were injured.
The vast majority of the protesters, however, were peaceful.
About 12,000 union members, many of them retirees, packed Bayfront Park. A few thousand more were barred from entering the park and ended up marching along downtown streets.
All expressed grave concerns that if a free trade area stretches from Canada to Chile, U.S. jobs will be lost to third-world countries where labor is cheap and environmental regulations few.
"These are the workers," said Richard Phillips, 55, of Land O'Lakes. He took a bus down to Miami with dozens of postal union employees from Tampa. "From retirees to young college students. We see their futures being shipped away."
Trade ministers meeting inside the Inter-Continental Hotel wrapped up their work a day early, giving final approval to a buffet-style framework for the FTAA. The talks were scheduled to end today, but trade ministers speeded up negotiations on the outline for the proposed agreement.
Protesters were as angry at the extraordinary show of police power as they were at the prospect of the FTAA.
Sam Lender, 82, and about 40 other members of Local 1199 - all retired health care workers - were greeted downtown by some 2,500 police officers carrying machine guns and carrying giant plastic shields.
"This does not look like the United States of America," said Lender, who lives in Delray Beach. "It makes me sick."
But police said they were merely protecting Miami from the violence that rocked Seattle in 1999 during a World Trade Organization meeting. They expressed satisfaction that that there was relatively little violence and it was contained to a small area.
Lender and the others from Local 1199 had risen at 5:30 a.m. and boarded a bus to Miami to join tens of thousands of other people from across the nation.
All ended up near Bayfront Park, just blocks from the Inter-Continental, where trade ministers from 34 countries met.
Few of the protesters knew little, if anything, about the negotiations happening inside.
The first melee of the day occurred at 7 a.m. when young anarchists, who oppose government and all forms of societal hierarchy, walked from a warehouse to the government center. There, the protesters chanted and sang songs before heading to Bayfront Park.
Miami Police Chief John Timoney rode his bike ahead of the anarchists.
At Bayfront Park, protesters tried to pull down fences that separated them from the conference. Police responded with tear gas and concussion bombs - loud firecrackers meant to stun people into inaction.
The situation calmed down in the afternoon during a rally and march sponsored by the AFL-CIO.
"We want to show our protest in a very peaceable manner," said Carolyn Dorman, 71, of Delray Beach. Dorman was the leader of a group from the Association of Retired Americans. Dressed in a bright yellow hat adorned with flowers and a yellow cardigan, Dorman was offended that police detoured their bus and made the senior citizens walk several blocks to the rally.
"They are spending all this money to take away our right to protest," she said, stopping in front of a police tank to pose for a photo.
Dorman raised her middle finger in protest.
Later, Dorman and the other union workers streamed out of the rally, looking for their buses to go home. It had been a long few hours, and many of the retirees were frail and had trouble walking amid the craziness.
Joseph Meltzer, 86, his wife, Gertrude, 87, and their friend Gussie Gatchman, also 87, all from Delray Beach, struggled to get through the crowd.
They walked past purple-haired protesters. Past people dressed as dolphins. Past dreadlocked teenagers holding signs obscenely condemning the FTAA.
The streets leading directly to their bus were closed, and a line of police in black riot gear stood blocking the intersection. Annoyed, Gertrude Meltzer went up to one officer.
"We have to get on the bus," she told an officer.
"I can't help you out, ma'am," he replied.
Her husband, who walked slowly behind using a cane, grumbled.
"This is ridiculous," he said. He looked around, at the police and hoards of sweaty, wide-eyed protesters.
"The only way to save this country is to get rid of George Bush!" he cried.
"Right on, brother!" said a guy one-fourth Meltzer's age.
As the day wore on, the union members, retirees and peaceful protesters vacated downtown. The anarchists stayed and began clashing with police.
As police pushed back, some protesters yelled to union members trying to leave the area after their march, imploring them to get off their buses and join the chaos. The union members refused.
Police were determined not to allow riots or vandalism. As some protesters lit fires in trash cans and created makeshift street barriers out of anything they could get their hands on, police began firing rubber bullets and beanbags at people.
"This is an illegal assembly," an officer screamed through a bullhorn. "Disperse the area immediately!"
Eventually, lines of officers marched toward protesters from all angles, pushing them to the outskirts of downtown. Protesters responded by lobbing oranges and assorted debris at the officers. At one point, someone threw a glass canister at officers from a high-rise apartment building.
Officers stormed the building.
Jose Gonzalez, 31 and homeless, watched as officers marched past the Camillus House, a downtown shelter.
Gonzalez doesn't know what the FTAA is, or why the protesters were downtown. He was just hoping not to get caught in the fracas.
"This is where people really suffer," he said, pointing at the shelter.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report.
