By
The Associated Press
CANCUN, Mexico - They protested in Seattle, Wash. and Prague. But the anti-globalization demonstrators in this beach resort are protesting in a country that has some of the best examples of what they are fighting against.
Outside the glitzy hotels and upscale shopping malls of Cancun, many Mexicans still live in poverty, some not even earning the minimum wage of 35 pesos ($3.60) a day. Still, in many modern cities like Cancun and northern Monterrey, wages are much higher.
Mexico's income disparity seemed to be on the minds of both anti-globalization protesters and economic leaders - all gathered here to talk about how to improve the future of Mexico.
Speaking yesterday at Mexico's regional World Economic Meeting, Mexican Economic Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement need to be extended to the country's most vulnerable.
Although Mexico has experienced five straight years of growth, many of the macroeconomic benefits haven't reached the poor, Derbez said.
"Unless they receive the benefits, then NAFTA is not working," he said during a panel discussion.
But while the economic meeting's participants discussed how to use free trade and economic growth for social development, protesters holding their own Alternative Social Forum were turned away by riot police as they tried to march to the hotel where the economic forum was being held.
One protester, 23-year-old student Laura Chavez, said it was ridiculous to hold a meeting of international business leaders in Mexico.
"How can they meet in a country that is so poor?" she said.
The city has beefed up security in response to the protests, anchoring naval ships off the beach and increasing police patrols around city parks where the protesters have set up camp.
Encouraged in December 1999 by their success in contributing to the collapse of the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, opponents of globalization have been staging protests at major economic conferences ever since.
They formed human chains last April in an effort to block entrance to the spring meetings of the 182-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, then trashed similar meetings held in September in the Czech Republic's scenic capital, Prague.
In January, police used tear gas to keep protesters away from the World Economic Forum meeting in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland. Infuriated by police action to keep them from Davos, some 1,000 protesters instead went on a rampage in the Swiss financial capital of Zurich.
The meeting and protests in Cancun have been much smaller and more peaceful, and the economic forum, which wraps up today with a speech from President Vicente Fox, has attracted mostly Mexican leaders.
It has also attracted the attention of the peninsula's many tourists.
Climbing up a light pole to get a better angle, Barbara McBride snapped a photo of protesters as they shouted "No more repression!" Many wore scarves over their mouths in case police decided to use tear gas.
On vacation from Covington, Tenn., McBride said she and her husband come to Cancun every year. For them, the protesters were just a little more local color.
"It seems at this point to be totally under control," she said.
