NBC: In Argentina, a tortured summit tango
Massive anti-Bush demonstrations expected at Summit of the Americas

By Laura Saravia

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — President Bush is arriving at this seaside resort for the two-day Summit of the Americas that will begin on Friday morning.

The gathering of 32 leaders from the hemisphere — every country in the region except Cuba — is intended to focus on job creation as a key to long-term peace and prosperity. Along with the talks, though, the summit is also expected to draw large anti-Bush protests.

NBC News’ Laura Saravia reports from Mar Del Plata on the goals of the confab, the demonstrations led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez that threaten to take center stage, and the massive security precautions in place.

What are the goals of the summit?
The goal ... is to make sure that all of the leaders in the Americas share the same policies and work in the same direction. The agenda for the summit is to discuss ways to create jobs, fight poverty and strengthen democratic governance.

The leaders will arrive here throughout the day on Thursday. The meetings and the inauguration of the summit will happen on Friday at the seaside resort if Mar Del Plata and will conclude on Sunday evening.

As with many recent gatherings of global leaders, protests demonstrations are anticipated. What sort of actions are expected? There have been no direct threats to the security of the summit, but leftist activists, primarily from Latin America, are holding an alternative People’s Summit in Mar Del Plata as well.

A large demonstration planned for Friday will be lead by Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona and Bolivian social leader Evo Morales, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bush’s most out-spoken critic in the region, expected to address the crowd of 50,000 that organizers anticipate. A large group of activists are expected to arrive from Buenos Aires early on Friday morning and march across the city to a large soccer stadium where Chavez will speak.

Local media has also reported that Cindy Sheehan, the American anti-war activist, will also attend the rally.

The demonstration is expected to be basically an anti-Bush march. Many people in Argentina are protesting against Bush’s participation in this summit, the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the war in Iraq and against Bush’s policies towards the region.

People are also protesting the Free Trade Agreement because they believe that it will create pockets of progress in certain countries, but that the benefits won’t be spread out throughout the whole region.

Local social organizations have called these days that Bush will be in Argentina “Days of Sorrow.” Local unions have called for strikes throughout the country and other anti-Bush protests are expected in Buenos Aires and over 200 Argentine cities.

What are some of the issues that the leaders attending the summit are expected agree on or clash on?
Most important, the leaders at the summit are expected to agree on making employment the central focus of the hemispheric agenda. They will be issuing a statement against poverty and discrimination, and trying to implement policies to raise people’s standards of living. They are also expected to issue a statement on security for the whole region as well.

I think that the issues that they are expected to clash on will be local policies. President Bush has also told an Argentinian newspaper that he will express his concerns about Argentina selling nuclear reactors to Venezuela.

Bush and Chavez's clear disagreements over trade and development are expected to take center stage.

What kind of security preparations have been made?
Security is extremely tight. There is a whole area that has been blocked by a security ring where the leaders will stay. Many local residents have been asked to leave the area or they have been issued a special ID card, without which they can not access the area.

Security is basically in the hands of the Argentine military and the Argentine federal police. We’ve seen ships, helicopters and also anti-riot and anti-explosive units that have been placed throughout the area.

Many U.S.-owned companies, like Blockbuster video stores and Citibank branches, have taken extra precautions to protect themselves ahead of the protest marches expected on Friday.

How significant is it that the summit that revolves around the issue of trade will be held in Argentina? Particularly since Argentina’s economy is still recovering from the financial crash it suffered from in 2001?
One of the main issues for Argentina, which it needs the support of the U.S. and the entire region, is the re-negotiation of its debt. The country accrued a large debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a result of the financial meltdown in 2001. So basically Argentina is trying to get support for handling its debt and getting flexibility for handling its debt.

Bush said in an interview with an Argentine newspaper that he is happy to help Argentina and he praised Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner for his latest negotiations with the IMF, in which Washington participated.

He also praised the progress of the Argentine economy, saying that it has grown in a strong way, but it needs to be sustained. Bush said that the Argentine government doesn’t need intermediaries in dealing with the IMF because they have done a good job with that.

Laura Saravia is the NBC News Mexico City Bureau Chief. She is on assignment in Mar Del Plata, Argentina for the Summit of the Americas.

Bush Aims to Calm Latin American Relations

By DEB RIECHMANN

Updated: 6:21 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2005
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina - President Bush faced ruffled relations in the Western Hemisphere here Thursday with protesters prepared for the U.S. leader in Argentina and Venezuela's leftist leader waiting to bait him.

Bush, who arrived Thursday evening for a two-day summit, is trying to reverse the image that many Latin Americans have of the United States: a powerhouse preoccupied with Iraq and terrorism and little interested in the social and political troubles in the region.

Trade and creating jobs to combat poverty and strengthening democratic governments in Latin America are at the center of the fourth Summit of the Americas. It was getting under way Friday in this coastal resort, attended by Bush and leaders and top officials from 33 other democratically elected leaders in the Western Hemisphere.

For Bush, who has later stops in Brazil and Panama, discussions with Latin American leaders might ease tensions. The president might also be able to push modest initiatives as evidence of American goodwill.

"This is going to be a tough crowd, a skeptical crowd," said Michael Shifter, a Latin American expert at the Inter-American Dialogue research group in Washington. "With a few exceptions, he's not going to get a lot of warm abrazos (hugs) from the leaders."

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of Bush and friend of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has said he would use the meeting as a stage to denounce the U.S. as a "capitalist, imperialist model" of democracy that exploits the economies of developing nations.

Chavez, top Cuban officials and demonstrators at a separate "People's Summit" here, claim Bush wants to open up Latin America to more corporations that will end up enslaving already poor workers.

Bush and Chavez were likely to meet on Friday, shortly after Chavez's speech to a demonstration of mostly anti-Bush protesters. Chavez has joked about whether Bush is afraid of him and said he might sneak up and scare Bush at the summit.

Bush's trip comes as he faces the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency back home:

_U.S. military deaths in the war in Iraq, an unpopular conflict in Latin America, have surpassed 2,000.

_Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was charged with perjury and obstruction charges.

_Bush had to replace a Supreme Court nominee who withdrew after mounting criticism from members of the president's own party.

"This is an important opportunity to reaffirm U.S. commitment to the Americas, especially in the face of the widespread impression that the Bush administration's interest in and attention to the region has been on the foreign affairs back burner since 9-11," said Peter DeShazo, former deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs.

Bush wants to revive talks over the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas _ stretching from Alaska to Argentina _ that would overtake the European Union as the world's largest trade zone.

Bush acknowledged that the U.S.-led idea for a free-trade area reaching into every country in the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba, had stalled. A high-ranking Brazilian official, who said he was not authorized to give his name, told The Associated Press on Thursday that 28 of the 34 countries participating in the summit had agreed talks should begin as early as April.

European and U.S. farm subsidies and tariffs, and the extent to which countries will cut them, have become the focus of talks aimed at forging a deal before December's meeting of the World Trade Organization's 148 countries in Hong Kong.

Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Argentina that Bush believes the best way to get the regional talks moving is to have a successful meeting in Hong Kong.

"That will kind of remove the larger obstacle in the world trading system that Brazil and Argentina and others have been kind of using as a reason not to move forward more quickly" on the Americas pact, he said.

At the summit site, thousands of demonstrators began assembling to criticize Bush's trade push in the region where an estimated 220 million people are living in poverty.

As hundreds of protesters began pouring into the resort for Friday's protests, police with riot shields redoubled security. Navy ships patrolled offshore as helicopters clattered over the luxury hotel where leaders will meet.

So leaders are gathering, and Bush is going there, and people are protesting. What else is new?

You do realize what good free trade is for a developing country? Investment will always be better than handouts.

I'm curious, why are people against free trade in and of itself? Sounds like a nice concept to me. And my economics professor did a good job of showing me how everyone can benefit from it on paper.

I don't know how big of a problem it is, but I'm guessing the vast majority of the rural poor aren't big fans of American farming subsidies. Why is it that neither of the parties wants to talk about how anti-free markets it is when only 3% of the US farms anymore? There's other things, but it just seems to me that farming subsidies are a pretty direct way that US policies hurt the third world.

I'm all for free trade, but you can't really think true free trade is going to come out of this meeting.

Chavez did a great job, the best part was "MALVINAS!!!!!!! MALVINAS!!!!!!!!!!!!"


the argentina people is great, 500x times more brave than the brazil people, we're too much peaceful

There were thousands of people, some holding Che Guevara banners.

You do realize what good free trade is for a developing country? Investment will always be better than handouts.

I'm curious, why are people against free trade in and of itself? Sounds like a nice concept to me. And my economics professor did a good job of showing me how everyone can benefit from it on paper.

I'm all for free trade, but you can't really think true free trade is going to come out of this meeting.

Revisionist history at it's finest.

I thought this thread was going to be about Maradona.

Were you there? Our media coverage was somewhat limited--I attribute it to a fear that people might start thinking about the issues being raised in this country. FEED US MORE PARIS HILTON!!! oh god...it's taking over...