Protesters form human chain at ADB meet

Protesters form human chain at ADB meet

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AFP): Anti-capitalism protesters mounted
more rowdy protests here Monday, unimpressed by the Asian
Development Bank's (ADB) pledge to intensify its war against
poverty.

More than 1,500 demonstrators, who had slept rough outside a
luxury hotel housing delegates at the bank's annual meeting,
formed a human chain and chanted anti-ADB slogans.

"ADB go away," "ADB is destroying Thailand," they shouted as
protest leaders threatened to storm the hotel if demands issued
on Sunday for a rethink of bank policies in Thailand were not
met.

Waves of demonstrators pushed up against police barriers and
shook them until an ADB representative presented a reply to their
demands.

But the bank pledged to do little more than issue a written
report on the complaints and expressed regret that protesters saw
the bank as a dangerous organization, demonstration leaders said.

Disappointed with the response, protesters then started to
slip away from the hotel. Some even presented riot police, with
whom they had been locked in confrontation for two days, with
flowers.

Sources close to protest leaders told AFP they had concluded
that there were not enough demonstrators to break police lines.

The demonstration swept to the threshold of the hotel on
Sunday, crashing through three police road blocks during an angry
day of protests.

Bank president Tadao Chino said in a speech closing the three-
day annual meeting that ADB governors had endorsed a plan to
tackle the scourge of poverty in Asia, home to 70 percent of the
world's poor.

The strategy sketched last year is designed to promote
economic growth, social development and economic reform in a
double-pronged attack on the causes and impact of the crisis
which devastated regional economies in 1997.

"Governors agreed that it is essential that economic recovery
be sustained. They encouraged countries in the region to continue
their reform efforts and to establish an enabling environment for
private sector development," Chino said.

"I am pleased to note that governors have strongly endorsed
ADB's poverty reduction strategy.

"I look forward to governors' continued support and
cooperation as the ADB dedicates itself to achieving its vision:
a region free of poverty and moves strongly and swiftly from
vision to action."

Thai Finance Minister Tarrin Nimmanahaeminda, one of the top
regional finance chiefs attending the talks, told reporters
Monday that although the meeting had whipped up protests, the
bank was determined to help the poor.

"While there are clamors outside (we) are fully sensitive to
the plight of the poor," he said, adding that the bank was "fully
cognizant" of the fact that the benefits of globalization must be
shared equally.

Activists, many wearing brightly colored headbands and
carrying flags and banners, belonged to 38 non-governmental
organizations and student groups, organizers said.

Their numbers were swelled by poor farmers from around Chiang
Mai, a northern city in Thailand's agricultural heartland, plus
activists opposed to Myanmar's military junta and environmental
campaigners.

Demonstrators claim that ADB policies have exacerbated poverty
rather than loosened its grip on Asia -- which is home to 70
percent of the world's poor.

The demonstrations were the latest in a growing trend of
protests at the perceived iniquities of global capitalism which
included action at the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in
Seattle last year and the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland.