Asian, European leaders brace for protests against Seoul summit
October 19, 2000
Web posted at: 11:07 AM HKT (0307 GMT)
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- After Seattle, Washington, Melbourne and
Prague experienced large-scale protests, Seoul was preparing the stage on
Thursday for the latest in a wave of vocal and sometimes violent protests
against global capitalism.
Serried ranks of police carrying riot shields took up position around a
conference center in the South Korean capital that will be the venue for a
two-day summit of 25 Asian and European leaders starting on Friday.
Around 30,000 police have been mobilized to try to prevent a repeat of the
bruising demonstrations seen over the past year against the World Trade
Organisation, International Monetary Fund and other bodies blamed for the
perceived wrongs of increasingly integrated world markets.
Water cannons are on standby and the police have 2,000 sets of plastic
handcuffs ready to deal with troublemakers.
"Globalization is a natural phenomenon," Park Seok-woon, head of the Korean
Institute for Workers' Rights, told the Korea Times. "But globalization that
infringes upon the the rights of ordinary people cannot be tolerated."
Activists hope 20,000 people will join a protest on Friday against the third
biennial Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which will address a broad range of
issues from transnational crime to the rapid easing of tensions on the Korean
peninsula -- underscored by news that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright will visit the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, on Sunday.
ASEM is the biggest international political meeting that Seoul has staged and
the government is anxious that it passes off peacefully as a showcase for
President Kim Dae-jung, who last week won the Nobel Peace Prize for his
efforts to end half a century of Cold War confrontation between North and
South Korea.
Appealing for demonstrations to take place in a "legitimate and peaceful
manner," Labour Minister Kim Ho-jin said unruly protests would undermine
Korea's credibility in the eyes of the world at a time when it needs foreign
capital to help cement its recovery from Asia's 1997-98 financial crisis.
"If radical protests take place, the country appears more exclusive,
nationalistic and insensitive to cooperative trends in this global village,"
Kim wrote in the Korea Times. "This negative impression will work as a
destabiliser in Korean society and eventually hamper investments from
overseas."
Fresh momentum
ASEM was set up to counterbalance thickening ties between Asia and the United
States, but the group has failed to make much of an impact since its
inaugural summit in Bangkok in 1996.
The second meeting was held in London in 1998 amid Asian grumbling that
Europe was not doing enough to help the region tackle its currency crisis,
which cut short lofty talk of a new Asian century.
The Seoul summit, according to one European diplomat, was an opportunity to
impart new momentum to ASEM, which critics dismiss as just another pitstop on
an increasingly congested summit circuit.
"We want to show that we don't need a crisis-driven agenda with the Asians to
make this a fruitful meeting," he said.
Asian governments were meeting on Thursday to coordinate their positions for
the summit, which is expected to call for an early start to a new round of
global trade talks -- something that anti-globalism protesters fear will tilt
the economic playing field further towards big business.
John Evans, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development's trades union advisory committee, said governments could not
afford to ignore the ever-louder complaints that globalisation was widening
the gap between rich and poor.
"I think it is crucially important to take people along with you in this
process of globalisation," he told a conference in Seoul.
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