Demonstrators, police clash at I.M.F. venue

Press, 26 September 1988, Page 8

Demonstrators, police clash at I.M.F. venue

NZPA-Reuter West Berlin Thousands of demonstrators plan to march in protest today against the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, which are holding their annual meeting in West Berlin. An indication of what could be expected came yesterday, when the air was filled with the wail of sirens as police cars raced to the city centre where 1000 demonstrators had gathered, according to police estimates. A Reuter correspondent said many of the youths were dressed in punk outfits and marched to the sound of beating drums. Their chanting turned to jeers when police in riot gear arrived in armoured cars.

The protesters accuse the Fund and the World Bank of increasing poverty in the Third World by imposing austere economic conditions. Major industrial nations, holding talks on the fringe of this week’s meeting, pledged action to ease the developing world’s SUSI2OO billion (SNZI9S6 billion) debt burden. Protest organisers expect as many as 40,000 marchers to gather today at West Berlin’s main railway station, Bahnhof Zoo, in the city centre for a march to within 500 m of the conference centre where the IMF/World Bank meeting is under way. Demonstrations had been scheduled but security concerns have increased following last

Tuesday’s failed assassination attempt in Bonn by urban guerrillas on Hans Tietmeyer, one of West Germany’s leading monetary officials. Mr Tietmeyer has been a key organiser of the IMF meeting and also prepared West Germany’s contribution to a meeting on Saturday of Finance Ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven (G-7), the biggest industrial democracies. The Ministers and bank chiefs, after being closeted away for eight hours in a lakeside West Berlin villa, said in a communique that rich creditor nations had agreed in principle on a plan to reduce debts owned by the world’s poorest nations. The officials — from the United States, Japan,

West Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada — also, decided they would stick with policies aimed at holding foreign exchange rates stable and reducing massive global trade imbalances. Offering an optimistic assessment, the communique said their economies were growing faster than previously expected. Inflation did not appear to be a big problem, but authorities could not afford to ignore its danger. “Continued vigilance is required,” it said. The new accord on debt, first conceived at last June’s Toronto summit of G-7 leaders, allows creditors three options to ease the debt crisis — cutting interest rates, lengthening repayment periods or writing off a portion of debts.