BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentine police clashed with dozens of protesters demonstrating against an Americas-wide free-trade plan on Thursday night, leaving three officers hurt, a police spokesman said.
Local television showed protesters throwing rocks and sticks at a building housing a U.S.-Argentine business chamber in downtown Buenos Aires. Several windows were broken before police cleared the area with tear gas.
The demonstrators chanted and carried signs with slogans against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, a trade pact being debated on Thursday in Miami by government ministers from across the region.
Most of the several thousand demonstrators in Miami were peaceful, but a few dozen staged violent protests and police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them.
Local opponents of the FTAA fear the deal could result in further job losses in Argentina, which was battered by a severe depression in recent years. The economy is now recovering but unemployment still runs above 15 percent.
Many economists blame pro-U.S., free-market policies for the collapse that has left more than half of Argentina's 36 million people unable to properly clothe and feed themselves.
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