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Thai police deploy in force to protect ADB meeting |
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May 9, 2000
CHIANG MAI, MAY 8 (AP) - Riot police deployed in overwhelming force Monday to protect the final day of the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting from protesters demanding an end to policies they say punish the poor and hurt the environment. |
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Some 2,000 police, many of them bearing clubs and shields, took up positions at the entrances and streets outside the Westin Hotel, which had been besieged Sunday by about 4,000 demonstrators who bulldozed through an outer perimeter of police barricades and besieged the hotel.
Police were taking no chances Monday, allowing protesters - whose numbers swelled before noon to about 1,200 - to assemble across the street from the hotel, but confronted them with a huge show of force aimed at deterring more trouble.
Three fire trucks were on standby with water cannon and mobile brigades of riot forces formed up to fill any breach in the lines.
The protesters, guarding their heads with traditional scarves and broad-brimmed hats in the tropical heat, chanted slogans and held banners reading "ADB is BAD" and "ADB - Anti-Democratic Bank."
But the area resembled an armed camp and some delegates attending the final session of the board of governors were stuck in traffic moving at a crawl because of the security.
Weeraporn Sopa, 33, leader of confederation of farmers from Thailand's poor northeast, said the demonstration was building on the protests he attended against the World Trade Organization last year in Seattle.
"I don't think the ADB will meet our demands, because it would mean they would have to abolish themselves," Weeraporn said.
"Our protest is a part of the world fighting against this kind of organization, which catalyzes the growth of capitalism in Third World countries. In the process, we poor have lost everything."
Police Lt. Gen. Aram Chanpen also called the protests a success, saying cooperation between police and the crowd had led to no violence or destruction of property over the three-day meeting.
The protesters are mostly people who say their livelihood has suffered because of ADB-funded projects, particularly dams that have displaced farmers and fisherfolk and a mammoth wastewater treatment plant planned for Klong Dan, near the capital, Bangkok.
The Klong Dan villagers fear the plant will destroy their area and say they are unjustly paying the price for extensive pollution caused by barely regulated industry that has sprouted around Bangkok in the past several decades.
The ADB contends that millions will benefit from the project, including the villagers, who should get cleaner water because of it.
But officials admits consultations with them beforehand were poor and have fueled the current trouble.
The protesters have been inspired by a worldwide series of demonstrations against multilateral economic institutions like the ADB perceived as arrogant, remote and out of touch with the people they profess to help.
They have demanded that the ADB stop funding the Klong Dan project and cease making loans that increase the indebtedness of impoverished nations and worsen the plight of farmers and the poor in the name of restructuring and reform.
Myoung-ho Shin, an ADB vice president, replied Sunday that the bank wanted to study their demands and meet their leaders next month. Protest leaders denounced "lies and empty rhetoric" and said they wanted their demands met Monday.
The ADB's mission is to eradicate poverty in Asia. The organization says that some 900 million Asians live on dlr 1 a day, and that rapid economic growth is the best way to get them out of poverty.
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