Protest Threat Looms Large Over IMF Meeting

Sept. 20, 2000 -- The potential of violent riots at next week’s meetings in Prague of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have organizers and officials scrambling into action.

They fear protests such as those in Seattle and, to a lesser degree, Washington, D.C., where small groups of extreme militants disrupted World Trade Organization meetings by clashing with police and causing immense property damage.

Czech President Vaclav Havel is at loggerheads with his interior minister, Stanislav Gross, on how to avert such scenarios.Havel, who spent years in jail as a dissident, is anxious not to muzzle peaceful protesters.

Meanwhile, the IMF’s head banker has outlined broad reform measures in order to mollify critics. These measures include promises to give poor countries a bigger voice in globalization.

Thousands at the Ready

Havel has told Czech media he wants Prague to “welcome all those people who arrive with the willingness to contribute to solving world problems.” He will host a debate of 300 IMF and World Bank delegates together with NGOs, human rights activists and alternative economists in Prague castle on Saturday.

But his interior minister favors the tough line. Gross has a “blacklist” of several hundred militants that has been compiled with the help of the FBI and European police forces.

Protest groups, including the Initiative Against Economic Globalization-Prague 2000, have compared the measures to the repressions of the communist era, from which the Czech Republic emerged only 11 years ago.

Gross has 11,000 police, plainclothes secret agents and riot troops on standby in the event demonstrations get out of hand. Today, another 1,500 police were sent into Prague, according to the CTK news agency. They will be deployed at 15 strategic sites around the city, the agency added.

The riot police, including a squad of sharp-shooters, are equipped with tear-gas launchers, armored vehicles borrowed from the army, water cannons and helicopters. Gross says that he is willing to break up even peaceful demonstrations if they block access to the delegates.

“Any attempt to disrupt movements of delegates will not be tolerated,” he told Czech television news.

Prague’s citizens are already feeling the pinch. The conference center and the five major hotels are cordoned off. Traffic has been disrupted by detours. Many are planning to head out of town to their traditional, small but cozy country homes and gardens for a long weekend.

Spirit of Inclusion

IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler has echoed Havel, attempting to staunch criticism and calling inclusiveness a real theme for the upcoming summit.

“I understand the Fund is an open institution learning from experience and dialogue, and this Prague meeting, hopefully, is a major milestone in this dialogue and open discussion for the future role of the fund,” Koehler said.

He said he planned to reassess the influential voting rights of a handful of rich countries and the goal of giving special loan packages to 10 more of the world’s poorest nations by the end of the year.

“I haven’t come to turn the fund upside down, but there is a need for further change and even accelerated change,” Koehler told reporters. He said the IMF is reviewing independent recommendations for a more simplified voting structure.

The Washington-based organization, made up of 182 member countries, currently bases voting rights on a country’s economic strength.

Critics say the decision process is unfairly weighted in favor of the United States, which holds 17 percent of the vote, and the rest of the Group of Seven richest industrialized countries. One recommendation suggests voting rights should be based on how much a country contributes to the fund, thereby possibly giving other countries a bigger voice.

Protesters Scoff at Conciliations

Protesters were unconvinced.

“It’s only part of their publicity strategy,” said protest organizer Viktor Piorecky, who plans to block entry to the convention grounds next week. “These institutions are undemocratic and very hard to change.”

Alice Dvorska, a spokeswoman for INPEG, an “organizing collective” formed to protest economic globalization, said the group plans to try to shut the meetings down.

After 20 years of dialogue, the IMF and the World Bank had proved incapable of reform, she said.

“Any form of dialogue will only improve their PR, and that’s not what we have in mind,” Dvorska said, adding that INPEG turned down the invitation from Havel to discuss globalization’s future during the summit.

ABCNEWS’ Sue Masterman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.