Marwaan Macan-Markar, BANGKOK, Jul 31 (IPS)
BANGKOK, Jul 31 (IPS) – It was inevitable: Singapore had to bare the police state soul that lurks behind its modern steel-and-glass buildings and elegant shopping emporia. And who better to have as partner in crime than the World Bank.
The occasion was the announcement by a senior police official in the affluent city-state that street protests and demonstrations, during the mid-September meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), have been banned.
They are excuses being dismissed as fake than fact by NGOs that IPS spoke with. ''The Bank had to offer a pro-forma excuse and that is what it we have got,'' says Jenina Joy Chavez, senior associate at Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based regional think tank. ''It is shameful, this attempt to look surprised. This consideration should have been a big one when the Bank chose Singapore as a venue given its record.''
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jul 31 (IPS) – It was inevitable: Singapore had to bare the police state soul that lurks behind its modern steel-and-glass buildings and elegant shopping emporia. And who better to have as partner in crime than the World Bank.
The occasion was the announcement by a senior police official in the affluent city-state that street protests and demonstrations, during the mid-September meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), have been banned.
Reports over the weekend in the Singapore press, all of them government mouthpieces, had police chief Soh Wai Wah saying that the country's laws could not be changed for this major international event, which runs from Sep.12-20. Police permits are needed for any group of over four people to hold an outdoor demonstration and even then, as evident last year, the protestors risk being set upon by the anti-riot police.
Some 16,000 delegates from 184 countries will see how authoritarianism and capitalism have become perfect bedfellows in South-east Asia's richest country. Representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accredited to engage with the meeting's officials ''will only be permitted to express their views inside the convention centre, in a special area,'' reports the government-owned 'Straits Times'. ''Even then, they must stick to police rules, which include bans on wooden or metal poles to hold up placards.''
