Update from Singapore

It’s all go here at the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Singapore, where friends have kindly lent us their flat, so we do not have to eat into JDC’s funds. In response to requests from partner organizations whose representatives have been refused entry, we are boycotting all official events. So that might have meant a relaxing time; I had wistful thoughts of the famous night safari at the zoo …. But meeting officials and fellow campaigners from all over the world, responding to enquiries from the press, making sure that the voices of our excluded colleagues are not forgotten, and planning together are all keeping us very busy.

It has been encouraging during this activity to hear of Hilary Benn’s announcement that he will withhold £50 million of UK funding to the World Bank until they stop imposing harmful and undemocratic conditions attached to debt relief. At last the government is beginning to sound as if it might mean business. They must build on this with a more powerful message when the next tranche of funding is due. It really looks as if all those Cut the Strings! postcards and petitions are getting through. Well done, campaigners!

Caroline has written about the World Bank accredited civil society representatives who have been banned, subjected to lengthy interrogations and delayed. Months of planning and preparation have been wasted, some people have wasted huge amounts of time and money only to be sent straight home and others have been severely traumatized by their experiences at the airport before, eventually, being let in. Caroline has written, too, about this morning’s demonstration in our designated 20-foot-square ‘protest pen’, to get into which we had to swipe our passes and from which some would-be protesters were taken away for questioning before being allowed to join us. After the protest, once out of our ‘play-pen’, we were instructed to take off our GCAP T-shirts; it’s OK here to advertise Nike or one’s cleaning company on one’s chest, but not to advertise the slogan “Stand Up Against Poverty; We Must Have a Voice”.

The host country has a Memorandum of Understanding with The World Bank and IMF which makes clear that the host country must allow entry to all those who have been accredited to take part in the Annual Meetings. Getting such accreditation involves approval by one’s own government, as well as by the Bank. Singapore has blatantly disobeyed its agreement. Bank President, Ministers, officials and others are now vocal in their disapproval, but one wonders if they could not have done more in the last fortnight to prevent this happening and it seems there is no sanction to be visited on Singapore. The World Bank must ensure that future host countries allow free expression and the attendance of all those who have been accredited. There should be conditions attached to the agreement (aha; conditons are necessary sometimes!), such as a huge fine to be paid if the host reneges on the agreement.

We had always realized that there would be less scope than usual for civil society activities in Singapore, so there is a parallel event, the International People’s Forum, a half hour ferry-ride away in Indonesia. Tomorrow I plan to go there to join the hundreds of activists from around the world and learn more about their proposals. I shall learn more, too, how debt has affected them; one particularly interesting-looking session will focus on the links between debt and climate change. I hope I’m allowed back into Singapore!