MIAMI - Hundreds of anti-globalization activists held demonstrations Sunday as representatives of 34 Western Hemisphere nations started talks on creating the world's largest free trade bloc.
Aides to trade ministers were preparing for meetings scheduled to begin Thursday, when their bosses will try to create a framework for creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. A business forum starts Monday.
Details of Sunday's meetings were not available to the public, said Richard Mills, spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
Under police surveillance, about 100 demonstrators gathered at a workshop near downtown Miami, working on puppets, art, a water-recycling system and other projects to get their anti-globalization message across.
About 200 other people wearing bright yellow shirts staged a colorful protest parade on the streets of Fort Lauderdale.
Rosalia Nolasco, from the southwest Florida farming city of Immokalee, marched with her 7-year-old son, Heberto Garcia, to protest low salaries paid to farm workers.
"The people who pick the tomatoes and the chilies and the vegetables, their salaries are so low," Nolasco said. "I'm here all week because I believe in this."
A man who identified himself only as Gecko, supplementing his yellow shirt with body piercings and multicolored hair, said he took time off from his job as a massage therapist in San Francisco to voice his displeasure with the free trade conference.
"The FTAA is essentially antidemocratic," he said. "A lot of people confuse capitalism with democracy. They're not the same thing. Capitalism is the most undemocratic institution in the world today."
Meanwhile, civil rights groups were considering a lawsuit against the city over alleged police harassment of protesters, said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) of Miami.
She complained about a new city ordinance that bans groups of demonstrators from carrying potential weapons such as glass bottles and said police have not been evenly enforcing the rules. She displayed photos of Miami football fans walking past police with beer bottles Saturday during a game.
A police spokesman, Delrish Moss, said Miami officers were only just becoming fully aware of the arrest powers given to them by the ordinance.
Five demonstrators were arrested Saturday for allegedly blocking a Miami sidewalk.
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