Protesters kept at bay as IMF begins meet

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 16. Local police and other law-enforcement agencies here are bracing themselves for more ``trouble'' today and tomorrow as protesters, who have already defied the authorities and taken to the streets, vowed to further disrupt the scheduled meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. As of Saturday night, police had arrested 600 demonstrators who would be processed and eventually released, provided they have an identification or at least give police a name.

The scene around the World Bank and the IMF headquarters looks more like a war command zone with authorities having drawn a large security perimeter around the buildings and tightly enforcing this cordon. With the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors already in town for the formal two-day meetings, the situation is expected to be tighter from today, and perhaps a little more tense.

On Saturday, police began their ``offensive'' against the protesters by storming and closing down a place which was being used as a headquarters for drawing up peaceful and nonviolent strategies for Sunday and Monday. The official refrain was that the building being used by the demonstrators had so many fire code violations that the ``kids'' would have been in trouble should a fire break out. But this has been taken with a large pinch of salt.

Few are expecting the kind of violence experienced at the Ministerial meeting of the WTO in Seattle last November. If Saturday's police response is anything to go by, the force is not leaving anything to chance. In spite of tight precautions, the early morning protests of Sunday have begun.

There has been more than just some murmur on the fashion in which these protests have come about; in the kind of message that is being conveyed and in the response of the authorities. From the outside, the demonstrators are trying to point out the negative aspects of the road to globalisation and the continuing pressures on the developing nations as they try to come to grips with huge debts accumulated over the years.

Continue reforms: G-7

The U.S.President, Mr.Bill Clinton, is in California for the weekend away from the Finance Ministers and the demonstrations. But meeting at the Blair House on Saturday, the Finance Ministers and the Central Bank Chiefs of the world's richest nations - the Group of Seven - have promised to keep pushing ahead for reforms of the Bank and the Fund.

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