Prague IMF Protest Turns Ugly

Protests at the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund here started on a festive note Tuesday, but by evening small groups of anarchists, hard-line leftists and vandals were smashing shop windows and tossing Molotov cocktails at police. Officers responded with tear gas.

For a time late Tuesday afternoon, protesters achieved their goal of blocking access to and from the meeting hall for the opening session of the three-day gathering. Delegates eventually left by special subway trains, but evening plans for many were disrupted.

It was an empty victory for the protest’s main organizers, who had called for nonviolence from their followers.

The demonstrators--police put the number at up to 9,000--have vowed to halt the meetings, continuing an anti-globalization drive that disrupted trade talks in Seattle last year and prompted violence in London in May.

One thousand police officers were called in from other regions of the Czech Republic on Saturday to supplement the already beefed-up force of 11,000 assembled to cope with the protests, authorities said.

Most of the protesters argue that the IMF and World Bank are worsening the plight of the world’s poor and should cancel debts owed by the neediest nations. Others who have latched on to the movement and were largely responsible for the violence go much further, charging that the capitalist system is exploitative and should be destroyed.

Police reported that by late evening, 51 officers and 18 protesters had been hospitalized. Thirty-four people were arrested--11 Germans, two Poles and 21 Czechs. A Japanese delegate to the financial gathering was hit by a stone but declined treatment, and a Russian delegate suffered a cut lip when hit by a bag of sand, police said.

In one incident, police officers were hit by a homemade gasoline bomb, and the flames were doused by colleagues wielding a water cannon. After dark, protesters smashed windows at McDonald’s and KFC outlets in the city center, as well as many other buildings, and they set cars on fire.

A gala evening for delegates at an opera was canceled after protesters surrounded the building.

Alice Dvorska, a Czech leader of the Initiative Against Economic Globalization, or INPEG, said her umbrella organization for the protests wanted to “disassociate” itself from the violence because it had “organized only the march.”

“We’re actually very disappointed with everything today,” said Chelsea Mozen, 24, an American and INPEG spokeswoman. “We’ve been organizing completely nonviolently, and we’re very frustrated about what’s happening on the streets.”

Reaction among Czechs appeared to be strongly in favor of the police, who in most cases simply observed as protesters staged illegal but peaceful demonstrations, yet acted firmly when violence erupted.

In a reflection of the local mood, Prague 1 Radio declared Tuesday evening that the rioters trashing Wenceslas Square--the scene of enormous peaceful demonstrations in 1989 that toppled communism--were “professional fighters who did not come here to protest but to destroy.”

“We did expect problems, but we did not expect such brutality, especially of the foreign protesters,” Prague Mayor Jan Kasl said.

Last December in Seattle, thousands took to the streets during a World Trade Organization meeting, leading to clashes between police and giving greater prominence to the issue of globalization.

The protests here Tuesday began with a street-festival atmosphere. Many demonstrators wore outlandish costumes, dressed as everything from the elves of Czech fairy tales to “radical cheerleaders,” who wore something akin to paper-strip hula skirts over their jeans.

“They’re trying to take control and do as they please, globalizing power for corporate sleaze,” went one of the chants, recited by a woman who identified herself as Mary Christmas, an erotic dancer from New York.

“Well, there’s poverty and misery all over the land; the situation’s gotten out of hand,” she continued. “When so few own so much, it’s time to take a stand: Take back the power! End corporate greed!”

Asked why she came to demonstrate, the woman replied: “When I found out that my clothes were made by some woman who cannot feed her children, it makes me cry. Also, all our friends are here and it’s a great party.”

The party atmosphere began to fade as one group of about 1,000 protesters faced off against about 100 police in riot gear, backed by four armored personnel carriers, at a bridge leading to the Prague Conference Center, where the IMF and World Bank meeting opened.

“I think we will try to go through [the police line] because we think the meeting there is illegitimate,” said Reko Ravela, 28, a Finnish postman who wore a helmet and foam padding in preparation for a confrontation with police. “That’s where the real criminals are, so we will try to go there and stop the meeting.”

A subway stop was within the police perimeter surrounding the meeting hall, so authorities always had a way to get the delegates out. But to avoid letting protesters get too close, trains did not stop at that station during the afternoon. So in practice, the only way in or out of the center was through lines of police.

Without organized transportation, some meeting participants were stuck inside. Then, late in the afternoon, after driving back a group of protesters that had stormed up a hillside to attack the perimeter of the conference area with stones, police ordered everyone to stay inside while they faced off with the protesters, who had blocked all access roads.

“I’ve been waiting here since 12:30 to get to my hotel, but there were no buses,” Margarita Bringham, the wife of a Finnish delegate, said while trapped in the conference center about 6 p.m. “I wanted to go to the lovely sightseeing tour, and here I am.”

The confrontations ended peacefully after protesters learned that special subway trains had taken delegates nonstop to a station on the far side of the city, where they were put on buses and driven to their destinations.

*

Special correspondent Iva Drapalova contributed to this report.