MIAMI (AFP) - Anti-globalization activists remained defiant, one day after ministers seeking to join the sweeping hemispheric trade deal announced an accord ahead of schedule.
Miami police announced that 146 activists had been arrested in protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement since Monday.
The bulk of them were detained overnight into Friday after protesters clashed with heavily armed riot police, both before and after an estimated 25,000 demonstrators, mostly belonging to mainstream US labor unions, marched against the trade agreement.
Riot police strapped on their heavy body armor again Friday, in preparation for demonstrators who threatened to protest in front of the swanky seaside Intercontinental Hotel, where the ministers met earlier.
Hundreds of officers, armed with pepper spray canisters and shotguns that fire rubber bullets and bean bags, marched in columns two deep and stood in front of the tall metal fence surrounding the hotel.
They were backed by three armored personnel carriers and a fire engine on loan for use as a water cannon. Some officers surveyed the action from atop two elevated mobile platforms.
Police crowed about their success.
"Law enforcement showed great control while large, violent groups threw rocks, paint, gas canisters, smoke bombs and fruit at them," police said in a statement, commenting on the events Thursday.
"These groups started several fires throughout the area, but all their attempts to disrupt scheduled protest and FTAA events failed."
Two officers were injured, but they are in good condition.
Police said they confiscated weapons from demonstrators, including bottles of urine and human excrement, rubber sling shots, marbles, nuts and bolts, box cutters, scissors and knives.
"What we saw in the streets of Miami was an outrageous show of force," said Doyle Canning, a spokeswoman for a coalition of independent protesters.
"It serves to expose the agenda of the FTAA, which is anti-democratic and supports corporate rule and militarization."
The police reaction was "a systematic crackdown on dissent," she said.
Protesters scheduled a press conference later in the day to give more details on the arrests.
Trade ministers working on the FTAA agreement wrapped up work late Thursday with a deal that scales back the original plan for a free trade bloc of 34 nations.
The move skirts what some thought was a likely collapse of the talks but downscales the ambitious goals set when the plan was envisioned back in 1994.
Upcoming trade talks should focus on lower tariff barriers, the summit declaration said, while the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies and dumping will now be resolved by the World Trade Organization.
Negotiators also sidestepped addressing controversial issues such as investment, intellectual property and government purchases.
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