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Guatemalan protesters, police clash over trade pact
16 Mar 2005 23:56:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Frank Jack Daniel

GUATEMALA CITY, March 16 (Reuters) - Protesters clashed with riot police at a rally in Guatemala's Mayan highlands on Wednesday against a free trade pact with the United States, in the 8th day of protests that have left one demonstrator dead.

Police in riot gear fired tear gas at the crowd in the highland town of Santa Cruz Quiche after a confrontation with a small group of stone-throwing protesters among 800 participants at the rally, a government human rights official said.

"There was a confrontation between the police and a group of youths. The police fired tear gas bombs to disperse them. The protest continues but is now peaceful," human rights official Raul Rodriguez said.

The rally follows a week of fierce clashes between police and protesters angry at the U.S-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, approved by the Guatemalan Congress on Thursday.

On Tuesday, a teacher was killed and several people seriously injured when hundreds of police and soldiers tried to disperse a demonstration in the Huehuetenango region, close to Guatemala's border with Mexico.

Witnesses say the security forces used live ammunition in an attempt to reopen the a stretch of the Pan-American highway blocked by the protest.

The highway remained closed on Wednesday as teachers flocked to the site of the killing, forcing police to retreat from the area to avoid further clashes.

"The police have withdrawn from the three municipalities directly affected. To avoid further confrontations there is no state presence in the area," Huehuetenango Governor Mauro Guzman told Reuters by telephone.

Violence by security forces is a sensitive issue in the Guatemalan highlands, where tens of thousands of Maya Indian civilians were killed in army-led massacres designed to crush leftist insurgents during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which ended with peace agreements in 1996.

The government of Guatemalan President Oscar Berger has used force on several occasions to break up protests since it came to office in January 2004. In August, 10 people were killed during a police-led eviction of a squatted farm.

Central American governments hope the contentious U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, will lower or eliminate tariffs on their exports.

Critics in Central America say patent rules in the pact will limit poor people's access to lifesaving drugs, and many worry that small-scale farmers will be unable to compete against subsidized U.S. agriculture.

Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have approved the pact, considered the most explosive trade issue before the U.S. Congress this year.

In the United States, CAFTA has languished in Congress while the Bush administration tries to round up support for it.

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Thu Mar 17 10:07:02 2005