By John Pacenti and Alexandra Navarro Clifton, The Palm Beach Post
MIAMI -- As a week of international trade talks commenced Monday, downtown Miami resembled more of an armed camp than a city of dialogue, with legions of police patrolling streets from which the public had been barred.
Groups representing demonstrators claimed they were being unnecessarily detained and harassed even before the first scheduled protest march today. A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union said his group might file suit against the city.
Three people had been arrested by nightfall, police said.
For weeks, Miami police have expected tens of thousands of anti-globalization protesters for a summit meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The FTAA would create a free-trade bloc throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, with the exception of Cuba.
Thousands of media representatives and officials from the 34 countries involved in the pact have come to Miami for the pre-summit meetings before the two-day talks that begin Thursday. News conferences and briefings were held throughout the day at the Hotel Inter-Continental, where the talks will be held, and the Hyatt Regency, where the America’s Business Forum, a gathering of corporate interests, began Monday.
Outside the meetings, roving bands of bicycle squads -- including Miami Police Chief John Timoney -- prowled the streets. Officers were at every corner and on rooftops, and police routinely stopped cars and checked IDs of drivers trying to venture downtown.
Workers put up a black metal fence around Bayfront Park, where protesters are expected to congregate this week.
With much of Biscayne Boulevard closed, downtown resembled a ghost town, with most businesses closed and even boarded up, expecting the worst. The shopping plaza at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and East Flagler Street was closed Monday, except for Catalina Erazo Pereda’s store, Free Zone Trading.
“I’m not afraid of the protesters. I’m afraid of the delinquents that infiltrate the legitimate protesters,” Pereda said. “All we can do is trust in God -- and the police.”
By nightfall, Miami police said they had arrested three people. Two men and a woman were taken into custody around 4 p.m. for not cooperating when police asked them to stop trying to dismantle a barricade fence. One of the trio will face a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer, Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss.
The ACLU and a number of the protest organizers denounced police tactics at a news conference Monday at Miami City Hall.
John De Leon, an attorney with the ACLU, said the city commissioners and the police department had clearly overreacted.
Protesters said police are stopping anybody who looks like a demonstrator, illegally searching their belongings, and keeping them in custody for up to an hour before eventually letting them go. De Leon said the treatment of demonstrators shows the city’s new ordinance governing protests is not being administered fairly.
Police denied they were targeting protesters.
“We are trying to protect everyone’s rights and we are only arresting people who are breaking the law,” police spokeswoman Anastasia Burns said. “We are not harassing anyone.”
There were few incidents Monday. One tense moment didn’t even occur downtown.
After speaking to the press, representatives of the protest groups rushed up to the second floor of Miami City Hall and demanded to meet with Mayor Manny Diaz. When a Diaz representative told the group to leave their phone numbers, they shouted at him before leaving peacefully.
Elsewhere, a dozen protesters from the California-based Gapatista group stripped in front of The Gap on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. The group says the popular clothing store destroys the environment and exploits workers.
Advertised as a naked protest, the group ended the demonstration wearing more clothes than tourists heading to the beach a block away. Under threat of being arrested for public nudity, the Gapatistas stripped down to only their underwear.