The Hindu : Protests cast shadow over meet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 28, 2002

International

International

Protests cast shadow over meet

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington SEPT. 27. More than 3,000 police officers, including about one half from out of town, are in charge of crowd control and law and order for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The meetings, which are usually a week-long affair with seminars and conferences, have been scaled down to a meet over the weekend, as has been the case in the last couple of years on account of protests. As before, rain is coming to the "assistance'' of the law enforcement personnel, with the District of Columbia witnessing some sharp showers on Thursday and a downpour with thunderstorms expected for Friday and Saturday.

The Bank and the Fund wind up their meeting on Sunday. Between the protests and the rain, authorities are talking of a traffic nightmare and urging people to make use of the subway facilities.

Protest organisations are saying that as many as 20,000 demonstrators could be expected to voice their disapproval of several issues ranging from Iraq to debt relief. The protests, which are being tightly controlled as the IMF and World Bank buildings are in the security perimeter surrounding the White House, are not going to detract the Finance Ministers of the Group of Seven who are meeting this afternoon to discuss a number of critical issues that include the impact of a war with Iraq on the American economy.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing war against terrorism, officials at the Bank and the Fund and the visiting Finance Ministers and their deputies will also be focussing on poverty reduction in developing nations, and tightening the fight against money-laundering and terrorist financing.

The concern over a war with Iraq — that has not been helped by an almost daily beating of the war drums by senior administration officials — has already had an impact on oil prices, which has shot up to more than $30 a barrel. The Managing Director of the IMF, Horst Koehler, when asked if a war with Iraq would further destabilise the world economy, replied, "We don't think this has an immediate impact on the recovery''. The global concerns of the economic health of the world per se and the consequences of a war in West Asia apart, Finance Ministers and those in charge of the Central Banks are also worried about the goings-on regionally. For instance, Latin America is already jittery about the financial troubles of Argentina and the fear of this spreading to countries such as Brazil, the largest economy in the region.

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