WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- Activists who are planning protests in Washington during upcoming World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings will begin arriving April 8 from around the country to prepare, and local residents and law enforcement officials, too, are getting ready, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
Protesters will be rallying against what they say is destruction of the environment, abuse of workers and neglect of education and health care -- all caused, organizers say, by international capitalist policies imposed on the world by elitist groups unaccountable to the public.
Many area residents are hoping that when the international economic institutions meet on April 16 and 17, the protests will not too closely resemble demonstrations in Seattle during which more than 30,000 protester disrupted a World Trade Organization meeting Nov. 30 to Dec. 3.
"Here's an excellent chance for a troublemaker who doesn't even know what global fairness is, who is just down there for a riot," Fred Barnes, business manager of the local Iron Workers Union, was quoted as saying.
For police officials, the stakes are high: the Seattle police chief and his deputy resigned after being criticized for their handling of the protests. "We think we can manage this so the protesters can strut their stuff, pound their chests and we can also keep a city running," Terrance Gainer, the city's executive assistant chief, was quoted as saying.
Some Washington law enforcement agencies sent representatives to Seattle to observe the demonstrations, the paper said.
It said 60 area police officers a day take a course at a training center in London, analyzing what went wrong for the police in Seattle. They are practicing how to handle as many as 5,000 protesters trying to block Pennsylvania Avenue, the paper said.
Protest organizers have pledged nonviolence and no vandalism but acknowledge they cannot control everyone, the Post said. "We're saying, 'You're not welcome at our demonstration if that's the tactic you choose,'" Nadine Bloch, a local organizer for the Mobilization for Global Justice, was quoted as saying.
Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights reserved.:
