By BUSABA SIVASOMBOON / Associated Press Writer
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Hundreds of police braced for a repeat of the violent protests that plunged Seattle into chaos last December were greeted instead by only a few minutes of pushing Saturday at the opening of an international trade conference in Thailand.
Most of the 1,000 demonstrators at the first day of the weeklong U.N. Conference on Trade and Development were poor farmers from the Thai countryside who sat down in a major intersection after police blocked them from coming down the street to the convention center.
Protests got so out of hand at the World Trade Organization meeting last year that the National Guard was called in and a curfew was imposed. There was more than $2 million in property damage.
The brief shoving match was the only disturbance Saturday as a mixed bag of demonstrators came to voice their concerns.
From the environment to the economy, from local to international, the diversity of issues was evident on the banners they carried: "Save the Moon River Watershed," "No Sanction Iraq," "Stop Trade with Dictatorial Regimes."
But issues of trade and globalization were the main focus, reflected in the banner at the front of the crowd that told the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank to "Go to hell."
"We need no trade liberalization if we -- poor people -- have to sacrifice so much when the rich become richer and richer," said Bamroong Khayotha, a leader of the group Assembly of the Poor.
One group of women from a garment factory made a halfhearted attempt to push its way in, but was blocked by a line of unarmed police. Eventually, a few hundred were allowed to proceed to the street opposite the convention center, where a conference official came out to meet them.
"We are all friends -- police and the poor," said Police Col. Pramote Prathumwong. "We try our best to avoid violence: when they come in peace, they should be treated in the same manner."
Among the foreign activists was Patricia Alonso, of Mexico, who came with a network of organizations working to keep agriculture from coming under WTO rules.
"These issues should not be in the hands of the powerful, these are issues that belong to us," she told the crowd.
Awni Behnem, secretary of the conference, said that UNCTAD shares the concerns of developing countries for a better future and greater opportunities for their people: "Your cause is our cause.":
