Mass Protests in Europe Against Corporate Globalization

DAVOS-ANALYSIS-Globalisation fears as deep as ever
By Adrian Croft

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The theme of this year's World
Economic Forum business summit was "bridging the divides," but the meeting
showed that divisions over globalisation remain as wide as ever.

The six-day annual meeting, where heads of many of the world's biggest
companies rub shoulders with presidents, academics and artists, drew to a
close on Tuesday amid controversy over its role and police handling of
demonstrators.

On the streets, protests in Davos, Zurich and other Swiss cities showed
anti-globalisation activists who have disrupted international meetings
from Seattle to Prague remain a potent force.

Inside the tightly guarded conference centre at this chic Swiss ski
resort, two of the dominant subjects were whether the U.S. economic
slowdown will spread to the rest of the world and the impact of the burst
Internet investment bubble.

But a series of developing country leaders voiced concern globalisation is
creating a widening gulf between rich and poor.

"When people talk about globalisation, what we see is a global world that
is divided into two. There is a structural fault of poverty. On one side
of that fault are the powerful and the wealthy; on the other side are the
powerless and the poor," South African President Thabo Mbeki told the
forum this week.

Rapid technological advances, trade liberalisation and the sense that
markets and corporations are growing ever larger has sparked fears over
jobs, the environment and traditional ways of life, helping to spur a
popular backlash against globalisation.

It sparked huge and sometimes violent protests against international
meetings such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference in Seattle
in late 1999 and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings
in Prague last year.

TRADE TALKS DRIVE

Globalisation will remain a hot topic as the WTO gears up for a fresh
attempt to launch a new round of global trade negotiations in Qatar late
this year.

Davos has become a target because opponents believe participants plot the
world's future at secret meetings.

To counter its elitist image, the forum invited 36 grassroots groups this
year. But many other groups who focus on the darker side of globalisation
stayed away, holding alternative meetings in Davos and also Brazil to
address social and environmental issues.

Swiss authorities staged an unprecedented and controversial security
crackdown in Davos to prevent a recurrence of the demonstrations and
clashes that hit last year's meeting.

After a local ban on protests, police stopped hundreds of people
travelling to Davos and turned back a few hundred demonstrators with
barricades and water cannon on Saturday.

Returning to Zurich, angry demonstrators fought running battles with
police on Saturday evening, torching cars, smashing windows and hurling
stones at police who responded with rubber pellets, tear gas and water
cannon.

On Monday night, about 100 demonstrators protested in Geneva against what
they called repression in Davos, while in Berne, protesters broke windows
at a McDonald's restaurant and shops after a demonstration against the
Davos meeting.

At a panel discussion at the forum on Tuesday, leaders of human rights and
environmental groups complained of a lack of communication between
businesses and grassroots groups.

DO COMPANIES UNDERSTAND?

"Do corporations really understand us?," asked Thilo Bode, executive
director of environmental group Greenpeace International. "I think the
majority of the CEOs (chief executive officers) here are more interested
in the cooling of the U.S. economy than in the warming of the planet."

Pierre Sane, secretary-general of human rights group Amnesty
International, said it was as if "those who are in power are not living in
the same world as we are living in."

"When young activists see...their issues not being addressed, they feel
they are not being heard and it is understandable that they resort to
violence," he said.

"Just dismissing those NGOs (non-governmental organisations) who resort to
violence in Seattle or in Washington, I think is not the right approach.
Maybe the method they use is wrong, but we have to take on board the
reason why these people are angry."

Sane said the 20th century had been the bloodiest century in history with
200 million people estimated to have died due to wars, political
repression and famine.

"Unless the NGO movement...becomes stronger and stronger as we enter this
21st century, I think that the 21st century has the potential to be worse
than the 20th century," he said.

Hendrik Verfaillie, chief executive of Monsanto, the U.S. biotechnology
leader that is often a target for environmentalists, said the company had
changed its ways after initially trying to convince environmental
activists that "they basically should shut up."

"We learned that that doesn't work. Some 18 months ago I decided to change
the course of action. I started talking to a large number of NGOs," he
said. If companies worked together with NGOs interested in finding
solutions, "it's a winning proposition for both sides and for society as
well," he said.

Greenpeace's Bode acknowledged that the Davos meeting provided a unique
opportunity for grassroots groups to put their message across to industry.

Noting environmentalists had held talks on global warming with 42 chief
executives of car manufacturers and suppliers in Davos on Monday, Bode
said this was possible only in Davos because everyone was together in one
place. The question was "how to move that ahead in a more structured way,"
he said.

09:22 01-30-01

***************************************************************
DAVOS-McDonald's says it's no symbol of globalisation
By Adrian Croft

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 30 (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp is unfairly
portrayed by critics as a symbol of globalisation, the fast-food chain's
boss said on Tuesday.

"I think you're right that McDonald's is oftentimes the poster child for
anti-globalisation sentiment," the company's Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer Jack Greenberg said in response to a question at the World
Economic Forum's annual meeting.

"In fact it is absurd. We are probably the least likely company that
should be selected for such a target ... We are an amalgamation of small
businesses owned and operated in the local country," he said.

Anti-globalisation protesters regularly target McDonald's restaurants. At
last year's Davos forum, some 2,000 anti-free trade demonstrators broke
shop windows and smashed car windscreens at a McDonald's restaurant.

A French court sentenced anti-globalisation activist Jose Bove to three
months in prison last September for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant in
a protest at U.S. tariffs on European food imports.

The singling out of McDonald's was frankly "a question of publicity,"
Greenberg said.

"I hate to be so cynical but some in the business of attacking
globalisation have said privately that they know that picketing or
breaking windows at McDonald's is not appropriate given how we run our
business, but that's the only way to get their picture in The New York
Times," he said.

LIKE THE WEATHER

Greenberg said globalisation was like the weather. "It's not something
that any of us can change," he said, noting that technology and
communications had made borders less important.

He was speaking during a panel discussion on relations between grassroots
groups and business that also included Monsanto, a leading biotechnology
company that has been at the forefront of controversy over genetically
modified crops.

Monsanto Chief Executive Hendrik Verfaillie said the company had changed
its attitude towards critics in recent years.

"What we did two or three years ago is certainly not what I would
recommend to be the best approach. We basically didn't listen. We tried to
convince the opponents or the activists that we were right and they were
wrong, that they should listen to us and that they basically should shut
up."

"We learned that that doesn't work ... Some 18 months ago I decided to
change the course of action. I started talking to a large number of NGOs
(non-governmental organisations)," he said.

If companies worked with NGOs "it's a winning proposition for both sides
and for society as well," he said.

"If NGOs, industry and governmental institutions could combine their
resources and energy, there is nothing that we could not achieve," he
said.

11:04 01-30-01