(AP) Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of this seaside resort Friday chanting "Get out Bush" as the U.S. president sought to promote free trade at a divided Summit of the Americas. Protests turned violent with about 1,000 people shattering shopfronts with clubs and pelting riot police with stones.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressed about 10,000 peaceful protesters before the violence, vowing to bury a plan to create one of the world's largest free trade zones. Mexico's president said the proposal would move forward anyway and warned opponents in the 34-nation summit that free trade had the support of the vast majority.
Speaking before a six-story banner of revolutionary Che Guevara, Chavez urged the throng _ including soccer great Diego Maradona and Bolivian presidential hopeful Evo Morales _ to help him block efforts a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA.
"Only united can we defeat imperialism and bring our people a better life," he said, adding: "Here, in Mar del Plata, FTAA will be buried!"
Fox, one of the region's strongest free trade advocates, said 29 nations at the summit were considering forging ahead on an FTAA, without the participation of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The fourth Summit of Americas convened amid drum rolls and blaring trumpets as President Bush, Chavez and the other leaders gathered in a seaside hotel with diplomats, civic leaders and even Indians wearing native headdresses.
Demonstrators took to the streets hours before the summit started, shouting insults about Bush and chanting "Fascist Bush! You are the terrorist!"
Later, some tried to break through a barricade on Avenida de Colon, a main shopping street. Booming tear gas canisters arced overhead as riot police surged forward, moving to repel the masked protesters who also trained slingshots on police.
Demonstrators carried sticks the size of baseball bats. Most were masked to cover their faces from police and guard against acrid tear gas. Car sirens also wailed as residents _ including elderly people and children _ fled while police held fast behind the barricades.
Protesters set fire to American flags and a bank. Several young people threw sharpened sticks toward police, who carried plastic shields and wore orange vests. Protesters dragged furniture from some stores and used it as fuel to set fires to keep police back.
Ramon Madrid, a hotel manager hurriedly closed up just three stores down from a pastry shop with shattered windows. He said he had never seen such violence in the bucolic seaside resort, Argentina's favored vacation spot.
"I don't like Bush, but this is too much. There is no need for violence," Madrid said.
Top-level negotiators at the summit have so far failed to agree on key language aimed at relaunching talks as soon as April for the proposed bloc stretching from Alaska to Argentina _ an ambitious proposal originally raised in 1994 at the first Americas summit in Miami.
The trade zone would rival the European Union as the world's largest, but its creation has been stalled for years amid bickering over U.S. farm subsidies and other obstacles.
Chavez arrived in Argentina early Friday after a week of criticizing Bush and U.S. policies.
"Today the FTAA is dead and we are going to bury it here," Chavez declared after stepping off his plane. "We are here to change the course of history."
Chavez has said free trade is being forced on Latin American countries, and he has instead pushed for an anti-FTAA deal based on socialist ideals.
He has used Venezuela's oil wealth to push for regional solidarity, offering fuel with preferential financing to various Caribbean and Latin American countries. Venezuela is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and is the world's fifth largest oil exporter as well as a major supplier to the U.S. market.
Chavez also regularly claims the United States is trying to overthrow his government, something the U.S. denies.
Joking about his rivalry with Bush, the Venezuelan president has said he might try to sneak up and scare the U.S. president during the summit.
When asked how he would react to Chavez, Bush said he would be polite.
"That's what the American people expect their president to do, is to be a polite person," he said. "And if I run across him, I will do just that."
Bush, who met with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, made no mention of free trade but said the two had a frank talk about Argentina's struggle to extricate itself from its financial meltdown.
Kirchner led a difficult renegotiation of more than $100 billion in public debt that was the largest sovereign default in history.
"The president was quite frank," Bush said.
He added that the U.S. was committed to exploring the summit's theme of job creation.
Some 40 percent of Argentina's 36 million people remain in poverty, and many blame trade liberalization for destroying local industries and causing a flood of cheap imports.
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Associated Press Writers Alan Clendenning, Dan Molinski, Nestor Ikeda and Vivian Sequera contributed to this report from Mar del Plata.
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