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IMF and World Bank rebuke Singapore over its curbs on protesters
Dudes, we are getting our collective asses kicked by the global media cos of this CSO thing. The 4 million smiles campaign is getting completely hijacked by this!
IMF and World Bank rebuke Singapore over its curbs on protesters
9 September 2006 Financial Times London Ed1 Page 8 English
By ALAN BEATTIE, JOHN BURTON, SHAWN DONNAN and STEPHEN FIDLER
(c) 2006 The Financial Times Limited
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank yesterday issued an unprecedented rebuke to Singapore over a ban on accredited activists invited to attend the annual meetings of the two financial institutions next week.
The international groups suggested that Singapore had violated the terms of its agreement to host the event by blocking the entry of 19 civil society representatives, who allegedly posed a security threat.
"Singapore had promised to facilitate the entry of accredited representatives under the memorandum of understanding with us," a World Bank official said.
The crackdown is part of tough security measures that Singapore will implement during the September 11-20 meetings to try and avoid a repeat of the violent protests that took place at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong last year.
Recent IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington have attracted few protesters but Singapore still wants to be sure that nothing of the sort will happen during this event.
The government will only allow indoor demonstrations. It will even provide activists with "safe placards" made of soft materials to prevent injury to the security forces.
The IMF and World Bank have sought to improve relations with non-governmental organisations which have accused them of conducting policies that have ignored the plight of the world's poor. A record 500 NGO representatives are accredited to attend this year's meeting.
"It's terribly embarrassing since the World Bank had adopted good governance as the theme of this year's meeting," said Antonio Tricarrio of Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale, who was one of those banned.
Among those banned by Singapore were representatives from the UK-based World Development Movement, Thailand's Focus on the Global South, the Freedom from Debt Coalition in the Philippines and the Forum on Indonesian Development (Infid).
"We strongly urge the Singapore government to act swiftly and reverse their decision on entry and access to the meetings for these representatives," the IMF/World Bank said.
Singapore has been urging its 4m citizens to greet the expected 16,000 visitors with a smile. But the gesture will be overshadowed by draconian security measures that are turning the city-state into a fortress.
The government promises to enforce strictly a law banning outdoor demonstrations, defined as a gathering of five or more people without official permission, introduced after race riots in 1964.
More than 10,000 police and soldiers, including tough Nepalese Gurkha troops, are being mobilised. Surveillance cameras and military helicopters will keep watch on roads and monitor crowds. People will be subject to random security checks.
"We will not entertain any notion of allowing groups of people to gather and form into larger and larger groups," said Aubeck Kam, the senior police officer leading the security operations. He added that the police were ready to fire on violent protesters. (eilonwy: so we are really willing to shed blood on foreign activists.)
The authorities have compiled lists of "troublemakers", such as South Korean farmers' groups that disrupted the WTO meeting in Hong Kong last December, to stop potential Protesters from entering the island nation. Parts of the city centre around the Suntec convention hall, the conference site, will be closed to traffic. Workers in nearby office towers, including those from Citigroup and UBS, will be forced to work from home because of the stringent security.
Approved representatives of "civil society organisations" will only be allowed to crowd into the Suntec lobby, smaller than a football field, to hold discussions with delegates.
Singapore says the tough security is necessary, citing the threat of terrorist attacks that have shaken south-east Asia. It claims terrorists could use public protests as cover to carry out attacks or distract the police.
The protest ban is also being enforced for domestic reasons. Goh Chok Tong, head of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said allowing foreign groups, but not local ones, to demonstrate would cause political problems for the government.
Some NGOs are planning protests on the neighbouring Indonesian island of Batam in response to the security Crackdown in Singapore. But the police in Batam said they would ban any rallies involving foreigners, as stipulated under Indonesian law.
Additional reporting by Anna Fifield in Seoul and Alan Beattie in London.
While I understand the need for consistency between treating foreigners and Singaporeans the same, I wonder why they decided to host the meetings in the first place if they KNEW this was going to be an issue. There was an article which suggested that Singapore was chosen for this very reason (think conspiracy theories), but I don't know... maybe this is a veiled (and long-winded, and expensive and massive) way of telling the SG govt that they really need to move on this whole public space issue.
[the views on this blog are completely my own, not my company's.]
[IMF and World Bank rebuke Singapore over its curbs on protesters]
Sngs Alumni @ 11.9.06 { 0 comments }
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