PRAGUE JOURNAL Protesters Assemble, Hoping for a Rerun of Seattle's Show By JOSEPH KAHN
PRAGUE, Sept. 22 — Woodstock was once the Valhalla for aspiring hippies everywhere — a name that invoked the ideals of a generation of make-love-not-war activists. For today's dreadlocked wannabes, there cannot be much doubt that the word is Seattle.
"This is our Seattle," says Desko Vladic, a 23-year-old German blacksmith who traveled to Prague by bus carrying comb, toothbrush, fork and knife in his baggy painter pants. "Seattle was the most amazing thing I have ever seen — people uniting to shut down a global institution."
His reference was a little skewed. The World Trade Organization picked Seattle for a global trade summit meeting late last year, only to see it collapse with unruly protests outside and discord among trade ministers inside. It still enforces the global trade guidelines from lakeside headquarters in Geneva.
But as perhaps 20,000 European and American protesters converge on the cobblestone streets of Prague for a series of demonstrations that start this weekend, Seattle looms as a beacon, and a challenge.
The target has changed. They are now stalking the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Washington- based lending agencies. But the goal is the same: Grab a share of the media spotlight to fight what are seen as agents of corporate-led globalization. Better yet, for a true Seattle high, steal the show altogether by blockading hotels and intersections so delegates cannot move.
"This is the first time that Europeans have had a chance to bring all these issues together in one unified movement like the Americans did," said Rachel Hudson, a 23-year-old from Liverpool. Ms. Hudson, wearing running sweats and a silver nose- ring, spoke as she wrapped twine around bamboo poles to make a garage-sized globe for a march on Tuesday.
"We just want people to open their eyes and understand how all the overconsumption in the West exploits the poor," she said. "And if we can stop these delegates from doing more harm, that'd be brilliant, wouldn't it?"
Prague has mostly welcomed the protesters. Vaclav Havel, the former dissident who is now the Czech Republic's president, has invited pressure groups to join him and leaders of the World Bank and Monetary Fund for an open debate at the Prague Castle on Saturday. The city also opened Strahov Stadium, a gray and decrepit monument of Prague's Communist past, as a campground for visiting demonstrators.
But Prague has just begun to taste the fruits of globalization — a few sparkling McDonald's and Tesco department stores are the most visible symbols around the Baroque masterpieces of Old Square — and most local politicians and policemen do not share the desire to relive Seattle.
The police have summoned reinforcements from around the Czech Republic. They are promising to turn out 11,000 officers in their puffy blue and gray uniforms, armed with pistols, attack dogs and water cannon. Protesters will have to produce their full complement of 20,000 to field two activists for every policeman. Large areas of the city are being closed to traffic; shopkeepers have closed early, boarding their windows.
Anticipating that it might be difficult to shut down the Congress Center, where World Bank and Monetary Fund officials have already begun their weeklong session, the umbrella group organizing the protests, called the Initiative Against Economic Globalization, has tried to turn the event into a celebration of the movement's many intellectual pillars.
Said Amin, an Egyptian neo-Marxist, is scheduled to lecture at a so- called countersummit meeting on how the lending agencies act as colonialists once did. Leonida Zurida Vargas, a Bolivian peasant activist, came to Prague to call attention to the forced eradication of coca plantations she says has displaced thousands of indigenous farmers.
Protest organizers, many of them Americans who were involved in the Seattle demonstrations, say the diversity of participants in the demonstrations here is a strength. But it is also a bit of a cacophony, a sort of Joseph's coat of many causes. The sheer volume of groups and complaints belies any common theme.
The boldest headlines from the Prague clash could come courtesy of a promised confrontation between neo-Nazi skinheads and anarchists who formed the Antifascist Faction League. The two groups, the left and right extremes of the European youth underground, say they have gathered in Prague to fight the lending agencies. But they seem more excited about fighting each other.
They plan rival marches in Letna Park on Saturday, neither of which has been authorized by the police. Both sides say they will reluctantly bash heads to get their message across.
"I don't personally like violence, but there is just one way to stop the skinheads," said Jan Kensky, 22, a Prague anarchist and warehouse worker. "When we chase the Nazis out of Prague, maybe the World Bank can leave, too." [end]