Security factor may draw more events here
Despite flak from World Bank over blacklist, many delegates
appreciate S'pore security measures
Sep 22, 2006
The Straits Times
SINGAPORE'S handling of security at the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund meetings may draw more conventions to
the city, even though it was criticised by the global lender and
activists, analysts said.
Singapore banned outdoor protests and earlier objected to 27 of a
record 700 civil society activists at the meetings because of their
involvement in riots at past summits.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz had said the city-state
suffered 'enormous damage' to its reputation. However, Singapore
avoided a repeat of the protests that disrupted the 2005 World
Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong and the IMF gathering in
2000 in Prague, where demonstrators hurled cobblestones at the
police.
'Personally, I welcome criticism but I do not welcome people
throwing stones at shop windows etc,' said Mr Marc Faber, managing
director of Hong Kong investment firm Marc Faber, who attended the
meetings in Singapore.
'I would have done the same in the shoes of the Singapore
Government.'
The Republic said law and order were a top priority at the meetings
from Sept 13 to Sept 20.
While activists protested at the lack of freedom, the measures were
appreciated by delegates.
Delegates recalled the IMF meeting in Prague, where dissenters also
stormed a balcony at the hotel where many of the participants were
staying. The police responded with tear gas and concussion
grenades.
Pakistani government economic adviser Ashfaque Khan, who attended
the meetings in Singapore, said: 'It was very bad in Prague. They
stormed the place where the meeting was taking place. The delegates
were running, they were moving out.'
At the Singapore meetings, activists were confined to an area the
size of a badminton court for their protests, though they had
access to other areas within the convention centre.
Executive director Paul O'Callaghan of the Australian Council for
International Development, who moderated a town-hall meeting
between activists and Mr Wolfowitz, said: 'Any host country doing
international conferences which involve development and aid needs
to have the prerequisite of coping with the participation of civil
societies.
'This one piece in the equation has caused damage to its reputation
as a future host,' he said of Singapore.
The Republic cut to five the number of activists it objected to,
but stressed that its decision to lift the ban on 22 activists came
before the public statement by the World Bank criticising it.
The mega event was expected to help boost Singapore's tourism
arrivals, which dropped to a two-decade low during the 2003 Sars
outbreak - with a record 9.4 million visitors likely this
year.
The Government estimated in March that it would spend more than
$100 million to host the IMF and World Bank meetings, and expects
at least half of that in tourism revenue.
Senior vice-president Joachim Rosenzweig at Germany's Landesbank
Rheinland-Pfalz and a delegate at the meetings, said that
Singapore's reputation has not suffered.
'I remember very well in Madrid in 1995 where people threw stones
at the cars of the delegates, and that was quite an aggressive
atmosphere,' he said.
'This is something which you don't have the feeling would occur
here.'
Other delegates said convention organisers should not expect to
duplicate the same setting as their own countries. The IMF and
World Bank meetings are held outside Washington every three
years.
Mr Stefan Gavell, executive vice-president at State Street, the
world's largest investment service provider for institutions, who
attended the meetings here, said: 'The more you do that, the more
you're going to have to deal with local sensitivity issues.
'You can't be too careful with the fifth anniversary of the 9/11
attacks.'
BLOOMBERG
y am i not surprised ST printed this after the IMF/WB meeting was
over.. 