> Sunday June 4 8:02 PM ET
>
> Activists, Police Clash But OAS Talks Proceed
>
> [Beneath this article: "Hundreds Protest OAS Assembly," Associated Press]
>
> By Randall Palmer
>
> WINDSOR, Ontario (Reuters) - Anti-capitalist activists clashed with police
> on Sunday but did not succeed in shutting down a meeting of the North and
> South American foreign ministers.
>
> Police fired pepper spray at several protesters who clambered on a
> perimeter fence to erect a giant
> anti-free-trade banner. Activists lobbed smoke bombs, placards and at least
> one bottle over the fence at the police.
>
> Later, another group surrounded a bus carrying three delegates from the
> airport, slashed its tires and painted ''Smash FTAA'' on the bus, referring
> to the Free Trade Area of the Americas that is targeted for 2005.
>
> Protesters had hoped for a reprise of the Battle in Seattle, their
> successful struggle in helping sink the World Trade Organization (WTO)
> talks in Seattle six months ago by keeping delegates from meeting.
>
> But the Organization of American States (OAS) meetings proceeded with
> little delay.
>
> Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien arrived by helicopter for formal
> inaugural ceremonies on Sunday evening and gave a ringing endorsement of
> the FTAA despite the protesters' shouts about the dangers of globalization.
>
> ``We must press ahead with an FTAA that can produce benefits for all
> nations of the hemisphere -- big and small,'' he said, saying free trade
> builds new prosperity and creates more jobs.
>
> Demonstrators said it was repressive to bring in an estimated 2,000
> policemen to ensure the meeting went ahead, but Canadian Foreign Minister
> Lloyd Axworthy said it was the OAS Shutdown Coalition that was repressive.
>
> ``It's its own authoritarianism. The only way you get resolutions of
> problems is by doing all this debate, discussion, dialogue,'' he told
> reporters.
>
> ``To have people outside criticizing the OAS for talking about the things
> they want us to talk about is pretty illogical.''
>
> He was struggling to make his voice heard in a large white tent showing the
> horrors of land mines, while 200 feet (60 meters) away the crowd chanted
> slogans against the OAS, free trade and big
> business.
>
> As Axworthy left the tent, just across the river from Detroit, he walked by
> riot police standing in reserve columns, wearing hooded helmets that made
> them look like Darth Vader.
>
> The Seattle meeting attracted 50,000 demonstrators. In April 20,000
> demonstrated at International
> Monetary Fund and World Bank but only caused inconvenience.
>
> Windsor, Canada's auto capital, saw only 2,000 to 3,000 protesters, most of
> whom were physically
> peaceful, although plenty hurled verbal abuse at the police across the
> 10-foot (3-meter) fences
> surrounding the nine city blocks. Forty-four people were arrested on Sunday.
>
> ``If the police wants to get oppressive, there's not much you can do,''
> freelance writer Jaggi Singh,
> 27, said for the coalition of anarchists, anti-free-traders,
> environmentalists, feminists and labor and
> other disparate activists.
>
> One demonstrator scrawled, ``Smash the State and Have a Nice Day'' on the
> pavement with yellow
> chalk. Others chanted, ``Two, four, six, eight, Windsor is a police state.''
>
> Across the Detroit River, 200 to 250 demonstrators marched noisily in
> solidarity, a phalanx of police making sure they did not block the
> international tunnel to Windsor. Four hundred people were denied entry into
> Canada in the past few days.
>
> Axworthy said the foreign ministers were concentrating on last week's
> reelection of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in a runoff.
>
> The OAS pulled out a monitoring team before the vote was even held on the
> grounds that it was ``far from free and fair,'' and on Sunday the group's
> human rights commission issued a damning report.
>
> ``The electoral process in Peru clearly constitutes an irregular
> interruption of the democratic process,'' it said.
>
> Canada was proposing to send in a new mission to study Peru's political
> situation and recommend
> a solution, but consensus among the 34 member states was far from certain.
>
> `It's a reality,'' Chilean Foreign Minister Soled Alvear said of the
> election.
>
> ********************************
>
> Monday June 5 3:03 AM ET
>
> Hundreds Protest OAS Assembly
>
> By TOM COHEN, Associated Press Writer
>
> WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) - Their chants echoing the anti-free trade unrest
> that rocked Seattle in
> December, hundreds of protesters shouted slogans and pelted police with
> rocks as the Organization of American States launched its annual assembly
> here.
>
> The protesters, who say organizations like the OAS widen the gap between
> the world's rich and poor,
> chanted ``Shame! Shame! Shame!'' during Sunday's protests in Windsor, a
> city of about 262,000 across the river from Detroit. Police rapped
> nightsticks on riot shields to move the crowd back.
>
> Some demonstrators tried to force their way into the area where the meeting
> was being held before police shut the gate, inciting the demonstrators to
> throw bottles and debris.
>
> ``Officers were being pelted by rocks as well as noxious substances being
> tossed over the gate,'' provincial police Sgt. Dave Rektor said. Still, he
> said, ``this has been a fairly successful, peaceful protest, with the
> exception of a small ... group.''
>
> Police arrested 41 people. Thirty-five were among 200 who mobbed a bus
> containing three OAS delegates and a driver. Some protesters sat in front
> of the bus while others painted slogans on it, police said.
>
> The protests overshadowed a the start of a three-day OAS meeting that will
> focus on human security
> issues in the Americas while taking care of normal business, such as
> approving a budget.
>
> The 52-year-old OAS also was scheduled to consider last month's
> presidential run-off in Peru.
> Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was the only candidate on the ballot
> after challenger Alejandro
> Toledo boycotted what he said was an unfair election process.
>
> A human rights report accused the South American country of failing to meet
> democratic election standards. If the foreign ministers agree, they could
> subject Peru to OAS sanctions.
>
> Trying to hold back protesters, authorities had set up a 10-foot fence
> around several blocks in downtown Windsor near the OAS meeting site.
> Hundreds of police in riot gear guarded the fence.
>
> The crowd three rocks and a homemade smoke bomb at one point when police
> ordered an anti-free trade banner taken down because it blocked the
> officers' view, said Const. Michele Paradis of the Royal Canadian Mounted
> Police.
>
> Police sprayed two people with pepper spray when a group tried to climb the
> fence. Two officers were receiving treatment after being hit by
> projectiles, Paradis said. A third officer was injured in a motorcycle
> crash during a disturbance, police said.
>
> The OAS represents more than 30 member Western Hemisphere nations. The
> Windsor protest - which was mirrored by another across in Detroit -
> represented a milder outpouring of the same anti-free trade movement that
> obstructed December's World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and
> April's International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington,
> D.C.
>
> Canadian and Detroit officials prepared by shuttering windows, closing
> courts and beefing up their police presence.
>
> Some OAS delegates complained that the organization was being wrongly
> targeted, noting there were no clear trade issues on the assembly's agenda.
> But protest speakers said that as part of an international power structure
> including the WTO and IMF, the OAS had helped erode workers' rights and
> exacerbate poverty through free-trade agreements and other deals.
>
> Activist author Noam Chomsky rejected what he called the ``childish
> nonsense'' of free-trade advocates who say globalization is an unstoppable
> tidal wave engulfing the planet. ``Free trade agreements are nothing of the
> sort, and they're certainly not agreements,'' he said to cheers.
>
> Detroit protester Craig Regester, 29, said he was protesting ``an
> organization that essentially wants to make decisions about my life and
> about other workers' lives without me having any say about it.''
>
> At the assembly's opening ceremony Sunday night, Canadian Prime Minister
> Jean Chretien appeared to refer to such complaints when he said the OAS
> must become ``more inclusive.''
>
> ``It is only by engaging all of our citizens, by ensuring that their voices
> are heard, that we will gain the confidence we need to achieve our goals,''
> Chretien said.