Peaceful demonstrations planned for WTO ministerial

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - Anti-capitalist activists will demonstrate against a World Trade Organisation meeting that starts in Geneva later this month, promising peaceful protests and no repeat of the Seattle riots of 10 years ago.

Protest organisers told a news conference on Monday that several thousand people will march through the Swiss city on Nov. 28 and past the WTO, an institution they blame for helping create economic and social crises by promoting free trade.

"We intend to show that the liberalisation policies pursued by the WTO are having a devastating effect both on the lives of ordinary people and on the climate," protest organiser Alexandre de Charriere told a news conference.

"It must be stopped and a new way of running the world must be found," declared de Charriere of the anti-globalisation ATTAC group which has combined with other bodies to stage what they dub "Anti-WTO Action Days" during the Nov. 30-Dec. 2 meeting.

De Charriere and others insisted there would be no violence and no attempt to block officials from accessing the conference venue as occurred at a similar WTO gathering in the U.S. city of Seattle in November 1999 -- exactly 10 years ago.

At that now-infamous meeting, which was called to try to start a new round of free trade negotiations, protesters ringed the conference centre and held up the start by several hours until riot police were called in.

"Here there will no repetition of the Seattle action," Giangiorgio Gargantini, a Geneva protest planner, said.

Another activist, Maria Casares of the World March of Women, said organisers had held talks with more radical groups who have acted violently at such protests in the past. "We think they understand now that it is counter-productive," she said.