What a load of crap. They need a better PR firm. We're going to keep winning if they keep turning this crap.
In other news, I think we lost our anarchist source inside the WB.
Chuck0
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> [from the World Bank's daily clipping service]
>
> 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."