MIAMI - November 20 - As meetings of 34 trade ministers get underway at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Miami and a protest march winds through the streets of Miami nearby, union members and their leaders are expressing enormous frustration with the 40 law enforcement agencies assigned to the area. "They have denied access to a significant number of buses - carrying probably 2000 people, many of them union retirees," said Fred Azcarate, Executive Director of Jobs with Justice, a labor-community coalition with branches in over forty cities around the United States. Azcarate was the emcee of a large rally held in Bayfront Park in downtown Miami to kick off the march, the biggest single protest event during a week of activities in opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). "This is the biggest denial of free-speech rights I've seen in ten years of organizing events in the United States," said Njoki Njoroge Njehu, Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network and a national board member of Jobs with Justice. "The militarization of this city has surpassed any rational level. The money and effort devoted to policing these protests, which have been entirely non-violent, demonstrates a tremendous defensiveness about unpopular economic policies that have been rejected in much of the hemisphere. The way in which they've chosen to treat the critics gathered here reflects an unfortunate indifference to civil rights and freedom of expression." Azcarate added, "The people they're preventing from marching are mostly older retirees who wanted to attend the rally. Many of them were not planning to march the entire route, and none of them posed any threat to peace and order in Miami. The city authorities should be called to account for this blatant denial of the civil rights that have been the strength of this country. We've been able to make the voices of thousands heard this week, but today has been a sad testament to the willingness of Florida authorities to disregard the civil rights that have made the U.S. such a strong country." ### | 
