April 16, 2000
 
 
            WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Riot police fired tear gas and clubbed protesters with batons in running skirmishes Sunday as demonstrators tried in vain to stop financial leaders from the world's richest nations from meeting here.
 
The police used the gas after skirmishing with demonstrators, many of whom were wearing bandanas, for several hours. The use of force calmed the volatile situation in the center of the nation's capital.
 
The anti-globalization protesters were trying to block off the city to prevent delegates from attending meetings at the International Monetary Fund building. They accuse the global lender of hurting the poor and destroying the environment.
 
"The use of tear gas is something we don't resort to unless we absolutely have to." Washington Police Chief Charles Ramsey told a news conference as the tear gas was fired. He warned local residents to stay away from downtown, which was largely empty as it was a Sunday morning.        "We expect to have serious disruptions," he said.
 
Earlier, police beat protesters with batons, fired pepper spray and rode their motorcycles into the crowd to try to break up demonstrators just a few blocks from the White House. But Ramsey described the protest so far as relatively peaceful. "Peaceful in this context is not burning, looting      and doing any destruction of property," he said.
 
He estimated that around 6,000 protesters were on the streets of Washington on Sunday and that the police had arrested 637 on Saturday -- a figure that already dwarfs the 525 arrested in a week of similar protests last year in Seattle.
 
Like the anti-trade protests in Seattle, the demonstrators have undergone weeks of training and appeared to be highly organized. But unlike Seattle, the police have been consistent in their use of force to prevent the protesters from disrupting the meetings here.
 
Body-armored police used batons "liberally," a witness said, as they clashed with about 500 protesters at one point before they reestablished the security fence that had been set up to keep the protesters away from the meetings.
 
"You're killers," bandana-c lad protesters, some of whom were waving anarchist flags, shouted at the police. City mayor Anthony Williams defended the police action and said he was determined to prevent a repeat of the Seattle debacle.
 
"What we have been trying to do from the very beginning, from all the way back in January, is to try to prevent a replication of what happened out in Seattle. I think the vast majority of these demonstrators want to demonstrate peacefully," he told CBS television's Face the Nation show.
 
SMASH CAPITALISM
 
The activists, carrying placards saying "Smash Capitalism", accuse the IMF and World Bank of foisting ill-suited economic policies on poor nations. Protesters believe IMF and World Bank policies serve the interests of rich countries at the expense of the poorest people in the world. This is something the lending agencies deny but many of these criticisms are also shared by economists and members of the U.S. Congress.
 
In another incident, protesters surrounded a minibus full of delegates wearing business suits who were trying to get into the meetings. The protesters shouted "Shame!" and "Go home!" banging on the minibus with their fists as the worried delegates looked out. After about 20 minutes, a squad of riot police, backed up by a dozen mounted police, dragged the protesters away from the minibus, throwing them to the ground and beating those who had sat on the ground in front of the minibus. "Peaceful protest!" the demonstrators shouted as they were beaten.
 
Although some delegates were delayed by the throngs of people, including French Finance Minister Laurent Fabius, the IMF meetings went ahead as busloads of delegates were able to enter through a secure entrance. Some fund staff spent the night in the building, and many delegates arrived at dawn before the crowds gathered.
 
White house chief of staff John Podesta said the police were trying to protect the rights of both the  demonstrators and the IMF/World Bank delegates. "I think the D.C. police and other local authorities are trying to do this in a way that does not use force and keeps the peace, so that both groups can do what they're here to do," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" show.
 
Adam Eidinger, a spokesman for the Mobilization for Global Justice said the protesters had scored a victory just by delaying the delegates. "We have surrounded the World Bank and the meetings have been delayed. Basically, we accomplished our goal," he said.
 
The IMF's International Monetary and Financial Committee was discussing reforms to the world financial system to make sure that the problems that caused the financial meltdown of 1997-99 do not occur again.  Ahead of the meeting, activists arrived at about 6 a.m. 1000 GMT) and began to link arms and block streets by sitting in the middle of intersections in a human chain. Using rope and chain strung between traffic lights they blocked off intersection after intersection.
 
Banging bongos and chanting anti-IMF slogans, the group carried large puppets of a Trojan Horse -- to symbolize the "poisoned chalice" of IMF loans -- and a massive piggy bank with "World Bank" painted on its side and the globe stuck in its mouth.
 
One group of 50 people were dressed in tuxedos, wearing shark-fin hats and shark noses as they danced behind a brass band chanting, "The IMF is the Loan Shark to the World."
 

Web posted at: http://www.sightings.com/general/dfs.htm