Miami --- Helicopters buzz incessantly overhead. Police boats, with blue lights flashing, ring Biscayne Bay. Hundreds of officers wearing full body armor patrol nearly deserted downtown streets.
Lists of road closings scroll along the bottom of TV screens. Cruise ships quit the harbor, fearing for their passengers' safety. The business district is emptied of most lawyers, bankers, accountants, jewelers and students.
An 8-foot-high security fence snakes down Biscayne Boulevard.
This tropical city is bracing today for the civil disturbance equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane as officials from 34 countries negotiate the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
As many as 20,000 demonstrators --- trade unionists, farmers, retirees, environmentalists, anti-war activists and anarchists --- are expected to noisily make known their opposition to the proposed trade pact for 800 million consumers.
Not since "the battle in Seattle," when hundreds of demonstrators went on a rampage that caused $2 million in damage during the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting, have the anti-globalization stars been so aligned.
Miami --- unlike the Mexican site of a WTO gathering last September --- is easily accessible. Buses, vans and cars have been rolling South, filled with activists.
While many protesters object to the loss of manufacturing jobs and to President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, they are here primarily to condemn the FTAA, which is supposed to reduce barriers to commerce among all of the hemisphere's nations, except Cuba.
They say the trade pact, to be completed by 2005, is an anti-democratic, pro-business giveaway that will hurt workers, the environment and the poor.
On Wednesday, the anarchistic call to arms was sounded by rallying protesters to "reclaim" the fenced-off area separating the trade ministers at the Inter-Continental Hotel from the masses.
"With the goal in mind to stop the FTAA, and create a world of liberation, sanctions have been planned for early morning, Thursday, November 20," reads the message on the IndyMedia Web site. "Some plan to hold the space in a festive atmosphere, while others plan to take down the fence."
Miami Police Chief John Timoney is ready. "Their ultimate goal is to disrupt the conference," said the Dublin-born, New York-raised cop. "That's not going to happen."
The blunt and profane former Philadelphia police commissioner was hired last year with two mandates: Clean up the corrupt Miami Police Department and make sure the FTAA comes off without a hitch.
Like Atlanta and several other cities, Miami wants to be chosen as the permanent headquarters for the FTAA and is sparing little expense. Most of an estimated $14 million set aside to sponsor the FTAA VIII Ministerial, which kicks off today, is being spent on security.
Riots in the street, a la Seattle, might convince the hemisphere's decision-makers that South Florida is too volatile for the headquarters. So, with visions of anarchists torching Starbucks or McDonald's, city leaders took an emphatically proactive approach to minimizing trouble.
Ban on risky objects
Last week, the City Commission enacted an ordinance prohibiting protesters from carrying glass bottles, water balloons, squirt guns, golf balls, bullhorns and more. Artists, who have created elaborate and whimsical 8-foot-tall papier-mache puppets, are particularly irked by the rule barring any piece of wood thicker than a quarter-inch.
The ordinance expires next week, which prompts accusations that the city haphazardly infringes on free speech rights.
But Tom Cash, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency chief for Florida and the Caribbean, says the precautions are reasonable. The Miami point man for international security firm Kroll Inc., Cash said "well-seasoned radicals" might squirt acid or urine on police in hopes of inciting a riot.
"In every situation like this, we have to look at the risk factors from the world of the bizarre," he said. "But the city fathers want this to look more like Miami Nice instead of Miami Vice."
Police Chief Timoney has enlisted the help of 25 law enforcement agencies and has 2,500 officers on downtown streets at all times. The police department has bought or leased stun guns, bicycles, body armor, riot helmets and gas masks, as well as fire trucks whose water cannons could be turned on rioters.
Arrests in advance
Police spent seven months culling Internet sites and interviewing law enforcement officers from around the country for information on the anarchists --- whom Timoney labels "spoiled rich kids." Two "suspected anarchists" thought to be casing a Starbucks were arrested last week in North Miami Beach. Other demonstrators have been picked up and, usually, released.
Timoney said he expects that only a couple of dozen protesters might get violent. He frets the most about the "sleeping dragons," demonstrators who chain themselves together to block streets. Coral Gables police spent $24,000 on saws and jackhammers that would be used to defang the dragons.
Timoney has invited reporters to be "embedded" with officers on patrol, on bikes and on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter.
"My gut is telling me the 25,000-30,000 regular protesting people won't be a problem," Timoney said. "If this was the Weather Underground, where it was a matter of life and death, then I'd be real, real concerned."
The AFL-CIO, which bused in thousands for this afternoon's anti-FTAA march, promises that its parade marshals will keep the peace. A thousand Florida retirees worried that pensions and health care benefits will disappear if U.S. corporations go overseas are also expected to march. They will stand alongside environmentalists and farmers, media critics and indigenous Americans --- and Melodie Malfa.
Malfa is a member of the Lake Worth Global Justice Group, a collective of twentysomethings who have been preparing for the Miami event for weeks. In a warehouse outside Palm Beach, the puppet-makers, stilt-walkers, "radical cheerleaders" and dancers have created their own hemispheric ideal --- the Free Carnival Area of the Americas.
"We're using art to communicate our politics," said Malfa, 26. "We're going into the streets to have fun. But who knows what will happen in Miami?"
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