Security Is Tight as World Economic Leaders Convene
At virtually every major junction, in front of every hotel and public building here, uniformed police are on a 24-hour watch as 12,000 ministers, bankers and government officials begin arriving for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank starting today.
Nearly 9,000 police were on alert even before a shotgun attack Tuesday in Bonn on Hans Tietmeyer, the No. 2 official in the West German finance ministry. A West German guerrilla group, the Red Army Faction, claimed responsibility for the blast aimed at Tietmeyer’s car.
Police director Manfred Kittlaus called it “one of the biggest police operations in the city since the end of World War II,” comparing it to action taken when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.
About 2,700 officers from West Germany have been brought into the city to supplement the local police force.
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