Americas summit closes as leaders endorse trade pact

Images of protesters clashing with police in Quebec City, Canada     ON THE NEWS John King: Protests at Summit of the Americas Lucia Newman: Free trade agreement is priority for Summit of Americas

QUEBEC CITY, Canada (CNN) -- Leaders of 34 Western Hemisphere nations capped their weekend summit with a declaration endorsing a regional free trade pact.

The Summit of the Americas closed Sunday with the leaders signing the so-called "Quebec Declaration" calling for a free trade zone across the hemisphere by 2005. Membership would be limited to democratic states, which currently excludes only communist-ruled Cuba among Western Hemisphere nations.

The signing came at the end of a two-day summit shrouded in tear gas as demonstrators fought pitched battles with police outside the meeting hall. Thousands of others protested peacefully against liberalizing global trade, which they argued will come at the expense of workers and the environment.

As of Sunday morning, 403 protesters had been arrested since the summit began Friday, said Constable Elaine Lavergne of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Of those, 253 were arrested Saturday night and early Sunday morning, as demonstrators battled police until almost sunrise, setting fires and shattering windows outside the security perimeter encircling the summit site.

Lavergne said 46 police officers had been injured, two of them seriously. As of Saturday night, 45 protesters had been injured, she said.

Creation of a hemisphere-wide free trade zone, covering 800 million people, is the issue that has received the most attention at the summit -- both from attendees and critics in the streets, who believe free trade and globalization will harm the poor and the environment.

VIDEO CNN's John King reports on day two of the Summit of the Americas Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Police use tear gas and water cannons on protesters outside the Summit of the Americas Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Police turn water cannons on demonstrators outside the Summit of the Americas Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     MESSAGE BOARD Summit of the Americas     BIG PICTURE Hemisphere of influence     GALLERIES Scenes of protest at the Summit of the Americas More images from Quebec City     ALSO

U.S. President George Bush, a strong proponent of the trade bloc, reassured other regional leaders that he would push the U.S. Congress to give him so-called "trade promotion authority" by the end of the year, which would give him broad power to negotiate trade agreements without amendments by legislators.

Some other leaders have expressed reservations about proceeding with negotiations on the free-trade zone unless they can be reassured that U.S. lawmakers won't try to attach their own conditions to agreements once they are reached.

On Saturday, the American leaders agreed on an accord requiring countries to be democracies in order to participate in the proposed free-trade zone and other regional programs.

"From this day forward, the benefits of any agreements we reach will flow only to nations that abide by our democratic clause," said the summit's host, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. "We have also invited the governors of the Inter-American Development Bank to apply the democratic clause to their activities."

The only country in the hemisphere not invited to the summit was Cuba, whose Communist regime is not seen as sufficiently democratic by the other participating countries.

The Canadian leader called Saturday's sessions an "intense and productive day."

"I was impressed with the quality of our discussions, which were frank and honest," he said. "We discussed the challenges that globalization poses to democratic countries."

Throughout the day Saturday, police used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets to keep demonstrators outside of the 2.3-mile security perimeter, erected to keep demonstrators away from leaders attending the summit.

A two-hour march Saturday afternoon by an estimated 30,000 demonstrators went off without incident.

Protests delay start of Americas summit
April 20, 2001
Quebec ready for protests at trade summit
April 20, 2001

Summit of the Americas
Stop the FTAA
Summit of the Americas - Security
AmericasCanada.org
Independent Media Center - FTAA Coverage

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.