Bush backs poverty fight in Guatemala

By Matt Spetalnick and Mica Rosenberg

CHIRIJUYU, Guatemala (Reuters) - President George W. Bush helped Guatemalan small farmers load crates of lettuce onto a truck on Monday to demonstrate the benefits of free trade in Latin America, where Washington's power is being questioned by leftist leaders.

Wearing a multi-colored traditional jacket, Bush lent a hand at the Labradores Mayas Packing Station cooperative begun by an indigenous farmer in the town of Chirijuyu.

"Free trade is important ... it's a gateway. It creates jobs in America and it creates jobs here," he told the farmers, who export vegetables to Wal-Mart stores in Central America.

Guatemala, led by conservative President Oscar Berger, is a U.S. partner in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, but is blighted by poverty, corruption and violent drug gangs.

It was the penultimate stop on Bush's five-nation, Latin American tour, a trip in which he has been dogged along the way by thunderous denunciations from his leftist nemesis in the region, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Residents of the Guatemalan town of Santa Cruz Balanya, many dressed in colorful flowing dresses or ponchos and straw hats, greeted the U.S. president with banners of welcome and a few shouts of "Viva Bush."

But elsewhere in Guatemala, where many remember U.S. support for military repression during a long civil war, street protesters told Bush to go home.

Worried about Chavez's growing influence, Bush has used his tour to try to improve ties with leaders of the right and moderate left in Latin America, where the Iraq war and U.S. trade and immigration policies have made him deeply unpopular.

Bush said he hoped to push reform through the U.S. Congress in the next few months to allow more immigrants to work legally in the United States.

"It seems like to me we've got to get this done by August," he said. "We don't believe in timetables. But I do believe in pressing hard and working with Democrats and Republicans to get it done," Bush told a news conference.

PROTESTS, FIRECRACKERS

Riot police fired tear gas and charged protesters outside the National Palace where Bush and Berger met. Demonstrators threw eggs and firecrackers at police and lit the spray from aerosol cans to use them as makeshift flamethrowers.

Scuffles broke out between riot police and indigenous farmers opposed to Bush's visit to the Iximche ruins, the ancient capital of the Kaqchikel Mayan people.

"We are protesting against the world's biggest murderer stepping onto our sacred place. For us it is painful and an enormous offense," said indigenous leader Jorge Morales Toj.

Guatemala wants the United States to give it helicopters, ship navigation systems and other help to fight drug traffickers who have infiltrated its police and killed politicians and policemen.