MONTREAL (CP) - Anti-globalization activists threatened Friday to disrupt a meeting of trade ministers from around the world that will be held in Montreal in late July.
International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew will host the July 28-30 meeting of about 25 ministers from World Trade Organization-member countries. Melanie Sylvestre, a spokeswoman for CLAC, an anti-capitalist group, said the international trade body "sows injustice, repression, famine, war and misery."
"We'll fight to get it dismantled because it doesn't represent the interests of the people of the world, workers, nor its poorest countries," she told a news conference.
"It only represents the interests of major corporations and the rich nations that harbour the big companies."
CLAC and other anti-capitalist groups want to disrupt proceedings at the three-day meeting at the downtown Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Tamara Herman of Block the Empire, one of the groups involved in the planning, said at least 500 demonstrators are coming from out of town.
"The only way we can influence this process is by disrupting it because there are no other avenues within which we can say what we have to say and within which we can act and change things," Herman said.
But Pettigrew spokesman Sebastien Theberge said such groups should realize the Montreal meeting is yet another step in helping to improve the quality of life for people in the world's poorest nations.
"We believe trade is not the solution to development, or the panacea, but we believe a dollar of trade or investment brings a lot more development than a dollar of aid, for example," Theberge said in an interview.
Pettigrew will meet with many non-governmental organizations about 10 days before the Montreal get-together, said Theberge.
He added that the threats certainly won't prompt Pettigrew to call off the meeting, which precedes a WTO ministerial conference in Mexico later this year.
"Security concerns are always important of couse. However, before such groups use violent means to shut down the meeting, perhaps they should turn to what we're trying to do for developing nations."
Herman, meanwhile, accused Pettigrew of being a "bit of a puppet" of corporations.
"I think he's quite pompous to assume that what he labels as the anti-globalization movement has disappeared," she said. "Our movement hasn't disappeared, it's grown."
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