STRONG PROTESTS AGAINST GLOBALISATION HAVE CHARACTERIZED THE "WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM" IN MELBOURNE.
At least eight people, including five police officers, were injured
in clashes Monday when protesters disrupted a meeting of the World
Economic Forum (WEF) in Melbourne and stopped some political and
business leaders from attending, reports the International Herald
Tribune (p.4). The demonstrators-a coalition of leftists,
environmentalists, debt relief advocates and students who say
capitalism and globalization are increasing poverty and destroying
the environment-failed in their attempt to break up the WEF meeting,
but managed to obstruct passage for about a quarter of the 800
delegates by linking arms across the entrances to the venue of the
conference in a casino and hotel complex.
Protesters also rocked a bus carrying about 30 conference
participants and smashed its windows, forcing its shaken passengers
to return to their hotel. WEF President Klaus Schwab condemned the
blockade as "unjust, undemocratic and uncivilized."
More than 40 NGOs had been invited to take part in the meeting on the
economic challenges and opportunities facing the Asia-Pacific region,
he said, but most had not even responded. "It is a great pity that
those who feel so passionately about issues like globalization and
its impact have chosen to protest against an institution that has
done so much to bring clarity and purpose to economic development
around the world," Schwab added.
WEF spokesman Claude Smadja also slammed the protest, report the
Associated Press and New York Times Online, quoting him as saying,
"It is done out of sheer ignorance of what the forum is and what it
stands for. The aim is not to promote globalization. The aim is to
discuss the issues raised by globalization." Similar protests this
year were more successfully contained at the spring meetings of the
IMF and World Bank in Washington and at the US political conventions
in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, says the IHT.
Also reporting, AFP notes that the leader of Australia's trade union
movement urged the WEF today to back a program of democratic reform
to prevent ordinary people being hurt by globalization. As 5,000
trade unionists joined anti-globalization protesters outside the
forum, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) president Sharan
Burrow urged delegates inside, "to put aside your company or
government's platform for a few minutes and consider your wider
responsibilities as some of the most powerful citizens in the world."
The union movement, she said, did not oppose globalization, economic
growth or technology, and her organization had no wish to "shut down"
the conference. But it did oppose the kind of corporate dominance in
which ordinary citizens do not matter. The 21st century could
continue to serve up increasingly divided societies, or concerted
decisions could be taken to ensure that economies serve communities.
"This means putting people at the heart of balanced social and
economic futures," she said.
13/09/2000