Anti-WTO protesters march through Hong Kong

HONG KONG, Monday (Reuters) - Several thousand anti-globalisation protesters marched through Hong Kong shouting "down with WTO!" and waving colourful banners ahead of this week's World Trade Organisation meeting.

The protest was the first of a flurry of demonstrations planned over the next few days against the trade body of nearly 150 rich and poor countries, whose ministers are meeting in Hong Kong from Dec. 13 to 18 to try to lower trade barriers and lift millions out of poverty.

Organisers said about 4,000 protesters marched on Sunday, waving signs reading "Junk the WTO" and "Rice is life. Life is not for sale" in a carnival atmosphere in the shade of skyscrapers in one of the world's main financial centres.

Police estimated the crowd at about 3,200.

Hong Kong is bracing for potential violence as about 10,000 anti-globalisation activists converge on the southern Chinese city for the trade meeting. About 9,000 police have been mobilised in the city's biggest ever security operation.

"This has been a successful protest and a very peaceful one. The biggest source of violence is from the WTO," said Elizabeth Tang, head of the Hong Kong Peoples' Alliance on WTO, which was coordinating the demonstrations.

Supporters of the talks say a trade deal could generate billions of dollars in benefits and possibly lift millions out of poverty, but many opponents say it would largely benefit richer nations at the expense of developing countries.

Protesters will be dogging the meeting's every move, and will include an estimated 1,500 South Korean workers, students and farmers, who are among the most militant activists in Asia.

"We feel very frustrated with multinational enterprises," said Kenzo Sasaki, owner of a dairy farm north of Tokyo, who led a group of Japanese farmers wearing Samurai clothing. "Our main message is for food sovereignty. Junk the WTO."

Worried about a repeat of the violence that marred previous trade meetings in Cancun and Seattle, police stepped up patrols on Sunday near the Hong Kong Convention Centre, the venue for the meeting on the city's famous harbour front.

Workers welded together huge black iron gates outside the convention centre and, in two hotels next to the venue which will hold a large number of delegates, metal detectors were set up to screen people coming into the lobby.