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Protesters stage counter-summit to IMF, World Bank |
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September 23, 2000
PRAGUE, SEPT 22 (AP) - Local businesses are shutting down until late next week as protesters straggle into town and delegations of global financiers gear up for an international summit on the world economy. A three-day counter-summit to the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank opens Friday on a nearby hill overlooking Prague. But some mom-and-pop shops in the area have already closed their doors, fearing they would become targets if the counter-summit's workshops and seminars bubble over into street protests when the bank meetings officially begin here next Tuesday. Even the city's centerpiece art museum and tourist attraction, the National Gallery, is taking a vacation during the global summit in anticipation of possible unrest. Meanwhile, delegations from the 182 member nations of the IMF began arriving Friday, including finance ministers from the IMF's three most influential members, the United States, Japan and Germany. The finance ministers from the so-called Group of Seven richest industrialized nations meet Saturday, amid fears that high oil prices and the sinking euro could stir economic turmoil and derail prospects for healthy global growth. Protesters, who view globalization as a threat to humanity, plan demonstrations outside the finance ministers' session at the German Embassy, and others have warned of civil disobedience - such as blocked roads - when the IMF and World Bank delegates open their summit. Topping the weekend protest schedule is a march from the grounds of the counter-summit to downtown Prague and back. But assorted groups, including communists, anarchists and skinheads, are also planning their own events. Despite threats of mass protests, there was little evidence by Thursday night of outside demonstrators arriving in great numbers. A few activists on bicycles were turned back at the German-Czech border, while an anti-car rally attracted more journalists than demonstrators. A tent city set up for thousands in a Prague stadium had few occupants by evening. Still, Czech police are taking no chances, hoping to avoid repeats of the rioting that marred last year's World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and troubles outside an IMF meeting last spring in Washington, D.C. Authorities are bringing in police reinforcements and ordering people who live around the conference center to park their cars elsewhere.
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