Shadowed by large numbers of police officers, protesters marched down Biscayne Boulevard this afternoon en route to downtown Miami as traffic generally flowed smoothly through the region, no new arrests were reported and relative calm prevailed.
Meanwhile, delegates to the hemispheric free trade talks reconvened in a restricted area of the downtown business area and large numbers of protesters marshalled resources for major demonstrations scheduled later in the week.
About 200 participants in a three-day march from Fort Lauderdale to near the site of the talks arrived at Biscayne and NE 79th Street at 2:25 p.m. and stopped for a brief rally outside the regional headquarters of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
They were expected to reach downtown Miami by this evening.
Most of the demonstrators wore yellow T-shirts and some carried banners that said, ''Stop FTAA,'' referring to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas under discussion at the Hotel Inter-Continental and elsewhere in downtown Miami.
''Ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop,'' they chanted during the rally outside the INS headquarters.
Marleine Bastien, a leading Haitian community activist, addressed the group as heavily armed police watched warily. At least 20 officers, clad in black uniforms, stood shoulder to shoulder outside a nearby Taco Bell restaurant.
The rally remained peaceful.
''We are saying no to the FTAA because we are fighting for human rights and refugee rights, not only for Haitians,'' she told the crowd. ``We want freedom for the people of the world. You cannot come to our country and force us to work for peanuts and put us in jail when we come here.''
Other demonstrators prepared for major marches through the heart of Miami on Thursday and Friday. As many as 20,000 protesters were expected to join those demonstrations.
''Everybody here is looking for justice and for respect,'' Esther Sylvain, a nurse and member of the Service Employees International Union, said as she stapled anti-FTAA posters to cardboard polls, then wrapped them in bundles to be distributed at the march.
South Florida AFL-CIO President Fred Frost said Thursday's march will be peaceful, though he warned that small bands of troublemakers might try to infiltrate the group.
If that happens, union leaders will point out lawbreakers to the police, he said.
''I hope the media covers this as 20,000 working people who came out at 2 p.m. and not about the fractional people that might come out for some violence,'' Frost said.
Police maintained their vigilance. Some protest leaders complained that the reins of authority were tightening and that no provisions had been made to shelter demonstrators.
Convoys of police cars carrying officers on loan from Broward County and other parts of the state moved through the area and into downtown Miami this morning. Herald reporters saw several individuals stopped and searched by police officers. Private security officers on duty at every Metromover station checked every car as trains pulled in.
About three dozen Hialeah police officers searched the backpacks of people entering the Bayside Marketplace. Anyone who didn't agree to be searched was turned away.
''Anybody with a backpack gets checked,'' said Hialeah Police Capt. Mark Overton.
He said officers were looking for rocks, hammers, ball bearings, slingshots, batteries, cans of spray paint and similar items.
As participants in today's march proceeded down Biscayne Boulevard, they were shadowed by eight unmarked white vans carrying large numbers of officers from Miami, Aventura and elsewhere. That convoy moved parallel to the march along a nearby north-south street.
The marchers spent the night camping on the grounds of Fulford Methodist Church in North Miami Beach. Then, they headed south on Biscayne, bound for Bayfront Park, chanting, carrying signs and handing out leaflets at strip malls.
Some motorists honked horns, seemingly in support of the marchers. Others made obscene gestures. A police escort kept traffic moving.
They made a lunch stop at St. Martha's Catholic Church, next to the headquarters of the Miami Catholic Archdiocese. There, they were addressed by Archbishop John C. Favalora.
Nancy Lee, 54, of Aventura, stood on the sidewalk at 135th Street and Biscayne and took photographs of the procession.
''People are exercising their constitutional rights,'' she said. ``I was a child of the '60s. I'm proud that people are doing this. I just hope this doesn't get violent.''
In other developments:
• Protest leaders urged state and local authorities to break a bureaucratic logjam and arrange shelter for at least some of the protesters.
''We're estimating that at least 3,000 folks are spilling into the city right now,'' Naomi Archer, a spokesman for South Floridians For Fair Trade and Global Justice, said this afternoon.
She said county officials assured her last week that a campground would be established for protesters.
On Monday, county officials said 100 to 300 tents, each able to accommodate four people, would be set up at a five-acre site at Northwest 17th Street near I-95. Portable toilets at the campground were to be provided by Miami City Manager Joe Arriola.
Later in the day, however, officials said liability and other issues prevented them from establishing the site.
''As it stands now, there's no place for people to go,'' Archer said.
• Police reported finding suspicious packages in at least three locations in the center of Miami, mostly around the government center.
At one point, Miami-Dade College was partially evacuated and service was halted along the elevated rail line for 50 minutes.
Two of the packages were detonated ''in an abundance of caution,'' a spokesman said, and no explosive or otherwise dangerous materials were found in any of the packages.
Police spokesmen said they believed the packages were left by protesters who wanted to harass authorities and probe for weaknesses in the defense net, but no proof of that theory was provided.
• Miami police lieutenant Bill Schwartz said prosecutors decided not to charge two people who officers said Monday were pulling on a fence that surrounds the Hotel Inter-Continental. Initially, the two had been arrested for disorderly conduct.
''Prosecutors rescinded the charges,'' Schwartz said.
He said prosecutors charged two other people with disorderly conduct after they were detained for urinating on a downtown street. Previously, police said those charges had been rescinded.
• While government representatives negotiated terms of the proposed agreement at the Inter-Continental, about 50 anti-globalization protesters met at the nearby First United Methodist Church of Miami for a ''teach-in'' about the pitfalls of free trade.
''There is much said about food security. We don't want food security, we want food sovereignty,'' said Juan Tini, a Guatemalan labor leader.
He said NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement that serves as a model for FTAA -- caused corn prices in neighboring Mexico to plummet because it allowed an influx of cheaper American-subsidized corn.
He said small farmers in other Latin American nations would be similarly hurt if free trade zones were extended. ''Say no to FTAA, say yes to life,'' Tini said.
• Other critics of the proposed trade pact met in a historic downtown Miami theater this morning to discuss, in English and Spanish, their concerns and their hopes to include workers' issues in the globalization process.
Guillermo Meneses, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO and the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers, said the forum was intended to give workers in the hemisphere a voice in the FTAA process.
''All of these negotiations have been done behind closed doors,'' he said. ``We have asked to be at the table, but we have not been invited to come.''
He said NAFTA has hurt the working class in Mexico.
''The promises of the improved market never materialized,'' Meneses said. ``Instead, we have seen wages drop. We have seen the level of poverty rise from 62 million people to 80 million.''
Meanwhile, many downtown merchants found the situation a little too calm. Once again, their stores were nearly empty.
Somehow, a conference intended to boost the economies of an entire hemisphere had managed to throttle commerce in downtown Miami.
''What are they afraid of?'' asked a frustrated Roger Martinez, a customer service representative at Kinko's on Brickell Avenue and SE 6th Street. ``I don't understand why they are shutting down businesses.''
To protect hundreds of representatives from 34 nations, police have restricted access to much of downtown Miami. In addition, many businesses outside the restricted zone told employees to work from home or other remote locations.
Other businesses adapted as well as they could.
''You know we were wondering about that -- how this would affect small business,'' said Christie Arceu, whose Brickell Avenue brokerage started its work day at 8 a.m., an hour earlier than usual.
Only a fraction of the normal work force was evident this morning in the Brickell financial district. Few customers could be found in local coffee shops, hair salons and other service businesses.
Martinez said his shop usually caters to business people who need copies or other services, but he feared that his supervisors would send him home early if business did not pick up.
''It's usually busy, but now, you don't even hear the machines running,'' he said.
At times, more police officers were evident on the street than office workers. One group of state troopers -- clad in gray, SWAT-style uniforms and in body armor -- attracted considerable attention.
''It's comforting and disconcerting at the same time,'' said Yolanda Gonzalez, an attorney who works on Brickell.
Said another pedestrian: ``It's like a video game.''
At least the cops and reporters buy coffee, said the manager of one downtown bakery.
At Don Pan, on Southeast Second Avenue and Southeast Second Street, in the heart of the affected area, business was down about 50 percent, according to manager Carlos Diaz.
Diaz frowned as he motioned to the boarded-up bank across the street. A squad of Miami police officers pedaled by on bicycles. The few customers sipping thimbles of Cuban coffee carried cameras and press passes.
''It's empty,'' he said. ``We're practically open just for cops and convention goers.''
Herald staff writers Richard Brand, Trenton Daniel, Jim Defede, Elaine de Valle, Ashley Fantz, Penny McCrea, Susannah A. Nesmith, David Ovalle and Carolyn Salazar contributed to this report.
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