SOUTH AFRICA'S MANUEL DISMISSES PRAGUE PROTESTERS.
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel dismissed as "alienated young people" the anti-globalization protestors who demonstrated at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Prague last week, reports Agence France-Presse. "They are alienated young people and that is what we have got to see and try and distinguish," said Manuel, who chaired the Fund and Bank meetings, upon his return to South Africa. He added that the demonstrators' stance was "anti-capitalism but it's not for anything else," the story notes e.tv reported. Among the protestors were "neo-Nazis and anarchists," he noted.
Anti-globalization protests by some 12,000 activists outside the three-day meeting in the Czech capital turned violent, leaving nearly 100 people injured, the story says.
In a separate report, AFP notes that a dozen people briefly occupied the Czech embassy in Bern for about an hour on Friday to protest what they called the "brutal methods" used by Czech police against protesters in Prague during meetings of the IMF and World Bank. In a statement, the protesters condemned the "brutal, sexist and anti-Semite" methods of the Czech police, and demanded the release of all those arrested in Prague during the anti-capitalism demonstrations. The story notes that in Barcelona on Thursday, 15 anti-globalization activists also occupied the Czech consulate demanding the release of militants arrested during the Prague demonstrations.
Commenting in an editorial, the Bangkok Post says the scenario is becoming depressingly familiar. An international organization schedules a meeting to discuss aspects of world trade or the global economy. Just before the delegates are due to convene, hundreds of protesters turn up and a spokesperson makes a pious and impassioned statement about their intention to stage a non-violent blockade of the conference center to dramatize the plight of the oppressed poor and the evils of big business.
Two or three days of bloody riots ensue with "victory" being gauged by the number of meetings disrupted and the amount of inconvenience and mayhem caused to delegates, onlookers and innocent people assaulted while trying to get to work or go about their business. Only the venue changes. From Seattle to Washington to London to Melbourne and, this week, on to Prague where some very mixed-up demonstrators tried to set policemen on fire with Molotov cocktails in an appalling display of street thuggery intended to show their opposition to what they call "corporate thuggery".
It is quite possible that some of the perpetrators of this mob violence do not understand what "globalization" means, says the piece. They are just out for a good punch-up. Those who do must surely have enough intelligence to realize that they are not going to advance their cause by resorting to anarchy and lawlessness. One of the saddest characteristics of the riots has been the total absence of any meaningful kind of discussion or dialogue.
There is a case that can be made against globalization, the piece says. Instances do exist where it has been used as an excuse for naked self-interest trampling on national sovereignties and cultures and as a guise for the rampant greed of unfettered capitalism. This is why it has to be regulated and why governments the world over have set up international bodies such as the WTO to ensure that free trade does not become a license to plunder and exploit.
The WTO, the IMF and the World Bank are not led by demagogues nor are they led by saints, the piece adds. They are human and, in some respects, their agendas are flawed and a proper process of consultation and dialogue is essential in righting the wrongs of which they have been accused. They are not aloof and are open to dialogue, but this means an intelligent exchange of views between reasonable people [not] setting policemen on fire and smashing windows.
Also commenting, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland, p.9) says the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Prague, accompanied by violent riots, leaves behind mixed results. On the one hand, it seems the meetings successfully established the importance of fighting poverty as a new slogan; on the other hand, the acts of violence of the anti-globalization protesters have done the poor a disservice. Even the image of those groups that were ready to talk is adversely affected by the former.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn succeeded in advocating the fight against poverty as the new main task of the Bank, notes the piece. Wolfensohn's ability to integrate more then 300 NGOs in the work of the Bretton-Wood-Institutions helped a lot in this regard.
The comment comes as the Australian Financial Review notes that in a Damascene conversion, the IMF and the World Bank have adopted a pastoral pose with regard to the world's poor. The biggest noise last week in the streets of Prague was not so much the sound of glass breaking and petrol bombs exploding. Ever since the Fund and the Bank failed to prevent, and then quickly contain, the 1997-1998 Asian and Russian financial crises, the Bretton Woods post-war institutions have been forced to redefine their role as global policemen for the world's economy and financial system. That navel-gazing has seen the institutions increasingly distance themselves from the so-called Washington consensus-the economic doctrine of financial market liberalization, free trade and privatization that was seen as the cure-all for the developing world's economic and social ills, and which formed the basis of the IMF and World Bank's lending policies over the past decade.
Rammanohar Reddy of the Hindu (India) comments that the Fund and the Bank leave Prague in much the same shape as before, though in small but definite ways both are showing change though of different kinds. There is the argument that in a world where global private capital flows are so much larger than official and multilateral assistance, the two have lost their relevance. This is not quite correct. For one thing, with private capital so volatile there will always be a need for an overseer or a lender of last resort like the IMF. Second, with global private capital concentrated in less than 20 countries the role of the World Bank in supplementing domestic resources in most poor countries is clear. The two institutions may be imperfect and more sensitive to the concerns of their donors than to those of the needy. But their relevance cannot be questioned.
The comments come as AFP reports that the IMF and the World Bank have signed a memorandum of understanding to hold their 2003 annual joint meeting in the Gulf trading hub of Dubai. The agreement, signed by the Emirati minister of state for financial affairs, Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, covers "measures to be taken in all aspects to ensure the success of the Dubai meeting."