MONTREAL -- Several downtown blocks will be closed to traffic, office employees going to work will be funnelled through special corridors and the local police have called in reinforcements from the provincial force.
With 26 trade ministers coming to Montreal on Monday for a meeting of the World Trade Organization, police are gearing up for the presence of demonstrators, who are talking of shutting down the event and recreating the success of the massive marches that disrupted past gatherings in Seattle and Quebec City.
Some are thinking of sneaking into the downtown hotel where the delegates will meet. Others plan to stage acts of civil disobedience and to lead marches that will have no preset itineraries and will be launched concurrently to make them harder for police to manage.
"We leave it to people to stage autonomous direction actions. Our aim is to disrupt the meeting," said Mélanie Sylvestre, a spokeswoman for The Popular Mobilization Against the WTO, an ad hoc coalition of activists planning demonstrations in opposition to the trade meeting.
"[The meeting] will have a major impact on the downtown area, in terms of pedestrian and motor traffic," said Commander Pierre Cadieux of the Montreal police.
"We're receiving two dozen trade ministers and 300 delegates. It's an important event."
Nevertheless, behind the rhetoric, protest organizers concede only a few thousand demonstrators will show up, because many students, who make up the bulk of the antiglobalization movement, are away for the summer, and because of a lack of preparation.
With the meeting having been announced in May, planning for next week's protests began only a month ago, compared with the 14 months demonstrators had before the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001.
Nevertheless, organizers say protesters from as far away as Guelph, Ont., Halifax and Washington have sent billeting requests.
"We're not against globalization," said Stefan Christoff, spokesman for the ad hoc coalition.
"We're against capitalist globalization. We're for people having the ability to determine the future of their communities, not for multinationals mapping out how the economy works."
Ms. Sylvestre played down the potential for damage to buildings.
"Property damage is nothing compared to what the WTO creates in human misery and hunger. A broken window can always be replaced."
International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said the protests hurt those in developing countries.
He said better trade rules would, for example, help cotton farmers in Mali deal with the subsidies enjoyed by their U.S. counterparts. They would also allow for cheaper pharmaceuticals for developing countries fighting AIDS, he said.
"If they want to stop us, fine, good luck. But they should bear the responsibility that what they're doing is going to screw the African cotton farmers and the African HIV victims."
Mr. Pettigrew said, "They say we have to get rid of the WTO. It's the opposite, we need a stronger one so it can discipline the United States or others who abuse their trade rules." He cited the U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber and the ban on Canadian beef out of fear of mad-cow disease.
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