Street protests, Venezuelan chief to oppose Bush
Indystar

(Partridge: I read in another article that Chavez was going to lead the march outside the summit. Also, I love the way every time Chavez is mentioned, its obligatory to say 'ally of Castro' - the same way every time Bush is mentioned, they say "President Bush, a close ally of the Saudi, Pakistani, Jordanian and Uzbek dictatorships"... oh wait, silly me.)

Leaders from 32 American nations and thousands of protesters are demanding the same thing as they converge on this seaside resort: jobs and better wages. But they disagree on how to accomplish that goal, with President Bush expected to push free trade and demonstrators angrily opposed.

Few believe the two-day Summit of the Americas, which will begin Friday, will solve chronic unemployment and poverty, and even those with jobs here question whether Bush and Latin American leaders will end up crafting deals that help the poor.

"I don't know what free trade agreements can do for us, and I don't even know what these presidents are going to talk about," said 66-year-old fisherman Dante Vitelo, hauling nets brimming with sardines to shore from the south Atlantic.

An ideological battle loomed between Bush and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and vocal critic of Washington.

Chavez, a leftist whose government has used the country's vast oil wealth to fund social programs for the poor, said Venezuela would object to any attempt by the U.S. to revive talks on a proposed hemispherewide free-trade zone, the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

"They are trying to include an article (in a summit declaration) to revive the FTAA. They aren't going to revive it even if they produce a 100,000-page document," Chavez told the Caracas TV channel Telesur this week.
An interesting summit sideshow could be the interplay between Bush and Chavez, who has said the U.S. wants him overthrown or killed.

Washington is not alone in its support of talks on a hemisphere-wide free-trade zone. Mexican President Vicente Fox wants the summit to nail down a date for the relaunching of negotiations on the issue, Mexican official Yanerit Morgan Sotomayor said in Mexico City.

Other differences on the summit's declaration also have emerged. Venezuela wants the declaration to state that 37 million people live in poverty in the United States -- a clause the U.S. doesn't support.

Leftist activists have gotten their message out early by staging a so-called "People's Summit" and vowing to stage a large-scale march Friday to reject free-market programs.

They point to Argentina's December 2001 financial meltdown as an example. Once the darling of Wall Street, Argentina plunged into street riots, a searing devaluation and a gargantuan debt default as government spending and more than $100 billion in international borrowing sank South America's second-largest economy. Despite a rebound, 40 percent of Argentina's 36 million people live in poverty.