BUENOS AIRES - Argentine opponents of a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas rallied here Thursday, burning U.S. and British flags as people cast informal ballots in a ''popular consultation'' about the FTAA.
Some 200 demonstrators took part in the midday rally as leftist, jobless and other nongovernmental groups set up 5,400 cardboard ballot boxes in major cities for the straw poll on whether Argentina should ultimately enter a free-trade bloc spanning 34 nations.
At a downtown street corner, organizers of the unofficial vote handed out paper ballots as people stuffed them one by one into the boxes.
For many, the verdict was already in as demonstrators chanted anti-American slogans during Thursday's flag-burning event, timed to coincide with FTAA negotiations in Miami.
Some in the crowd lit American and British flags ablaze, along with a black flag bearing a skull and crossbones.
GROWING DISCONTENT
Albeit small, the protest underscored simmering anti-free-trade sentiment among many leftist groups, jobless workers and others still suffering from a wrenching economic crisis that plunged Argentina into turmoil in late 2001.
With this country's unemployment rate still topping 15 percent, many here worried that a free-trade summit in Miami, if it leads to an eventual FTAA pact, would bring only more joblessness and trade disadvantages here.
While hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police Thursday in Miami near the site of the talks on creating a joint North and South American free-trade area, protests here were peaceful by comparison.
Carlos Aicega, a 69-year-old man in a business suit, stopped to cast a ballot, saying he voted against free trade because he feared the United States, as a world superpower, would gain the upper hand in any trade deal.
''We can't even export our wheat and soybeans abroad as we would like because of the heavy U.S. agricultural subsidies,'' he complained. ``Emerging countries like ours won't benefit from free trade.''
VOICING OPINIONS
Bruno Moreno, 20, handed out ballots while complaining that civil society was not being allowed sufficient opportunity to air alternative viewpoints in Miami -- hence the straw vote here.
''With these ballot boxes here, people in our country can give their opinion,'' he said.
The ballots asked participants if they favor Argentina joining the FTAA. It also asked whether they approved of paying off the country's billions of dollars in external debt and whether to allow U.S. military troops into Argentina for training exercises.
Opinion remains divided across Argentina about the benefits and disadvantages of a trade area.
Argentina's foreign minister, Rafael Bielsa, publicly defended the government's decision to take part in the Miami negotiations. He noted that greater integration appeared the only alternative or otherwise those nations excluded from any future pact could be relegated to a corner.
''Argentina can't be absent from any seat at the table,'' said Bielsa, speaking with reporters before he and Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna flew to Miami.
Uruguay's president, Jorge Batlle, said he was surprised by popular outrage in the region against free trade. ''Frankly, I don't know why free trade is so harshly criticized,'' he told reporters in Montevideo.
He said any agreement that opened new markets while scaling back trade barriers could only help bolster exports in the region.
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