Argentina Clings to IMF Meeting Spotlight

November 18, 2001

By REUTERS
 

Filed at 12:01 p.m. ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The world's wealthier nations on Sunday
turned their attention to helping the poorest while a
continuing sideshow over Argentina still held much of the
spotlight as three days of international meetings wound
down.

After a day of noisy but largely ineffectual protest in the
Canadian capital's chilly streets on Saturday, the
development committee of the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank began talks on how best to alleviate world
poverty.

The United States and other rich industrial nations, as
well as top emerging economies that together make up the
so-called Group of 20 were trying to give advice and
guidance to the global lenders against a backdrop of
uncertainty about their own economic prospects.

The IMF said on Saturday that the United States, the
world's top economy, was headed for ``a mild recession''
and that Japan's outlook was ``increasingly worrying.''
Reverberations from the Sept. 11 attacks that flattened New
York's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon have
swept through the world economy, adding a pall of
uncertainty.

The IMF on Thursday revised down its estimates for global
growth this year and in 2002, adding to the difficulty of
devising ways to help the poorest bootstrap their way to
prosperity or at least to a future of less crushing
poverty.

DANGER OF SELF-PERPETUATING SPIRAL

``With no major region providing substantive support to
(economic) activity, further weakness in any one would
reinforce the already synchronized downturn,'' IMF Managing
Director Horst Koehler said on Saturday.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, while rejecting IMF
forecasts for anemic U.S. growth in 2001 and 2002, used the
meetings to continue a campaign to have the IMF tighten its
lending practices by trying to ensure that there were
strong prospects for repayment and that all loan recipients
understand they must repay.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan accompanied O'Neill
to the international meetings, telling the participants the
benefits the U.S. has achieved from cutting interest rates
aggressively this year, according to German sources. No
public record of the Fed chief's remarks was made
available.

The Fed has slashed U.S. rates 10 times so far this year,
trying to revive economic activity that already was waning
before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Argentina, a focus of concern over IMF loans and lending
practices, was still trying to build international support
for efforts to cut its huge debt servicing costs through a
complicated debt swap arrangement that was to start on
Monday.

FRETTING OVER ARGENTINA

Argentine Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, who met O'Neill
one-on-one on Friday, held a separate hour-long meeting on
Sunday with Koehler. Argentina has an agreement with the
IMF but wants, at a minimum, to get the IMF to send a
mission there that would free up about $1.3 billion of the
loan money.

Argentina wants to swap up to $60 billion of existing debt,
mostly held by Argentine banks and pension funds, for
cheaper debt to reduce the carrying costs of its
$132-billion debt obligations. It hopes for at least
comforting words of support from the IMF that might help
reassure and attract investors.

Another country that has leaned on the IMF for support,
Turkey, on Sunday said it was confident about receiving
support from the IMF board for a new deal on extra funding
for the cash-strapped country.

Turkish Economy Minister Kemal told Reuters that Koehler's
announcement last Thursday that he was recommending a new
$10-billion loan agreement for Turkey showed the IMF
accepted Turkey's presentations on why it was needed. But
he rejected any comparison between Turkey and Argentina.

``Really our circumstances are quite different,'' Dervis
said. ``In the structure of exports and in trade relations
we are really quite different.'' The international
financial community has shown a less skeptical view toward
Turkey's efforts while remaining wary about Argentina.

Like most international meetings, the Ottawa one drew its
share of protesters, who carried signs claiming IMF stood
for ''insensitive murdering fascists'' and who smashed
windows at a local McDonald's (news/quote), which has
become a symbol of global uniformity that many dislike.

But Ottawa police said on Sunday that there had been only
41 arrests since the meetings started and mostly
inconsequential damage. A few hundred demonstrators milled
about on Sunday morning outside a courtroom where two of
those arrested earlier were being charged.
 

Thousands Protest Ga. Army School

November 18, 2001

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 

Filed at 2:34 p.m. ET
 
 

COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) -- Thousands of demonstrators marched
outside Fort Benning Sunday to protest a former Army school
they blame for alleged human rights violations against
Latin American civilians. About 40 people were taken into
custody.

During the annual funeral march to the front gate of the
post, protesters carried signs reading ``Imperialist
Assassins'' and created a memorial to the alleged victims
of graduates of the School of the Americas, which was a
training center for Latin American soldiers. Some stuck
crosses through the chain-link fence.

``I wanted to bear witness to these deeds by SOA graduates
-- to take a stand against terrorism wherever it happens to
be,'' said Ralph Armbruster, a social science teacher from
Santa Barbara, Calif.

About 40 people were taken into custody after they slipped
through an opening in a fence and onto base property. The
crowd, estimated by police at 6,000 to 7,000, included
senior citizens and veterans.

With the United States at war against terrorists and
Americans riding a patriotic wave, organizers said it was
more important than ever to protest the former school.

``We are fighting terrorism out there in other parts of the
world, but here we are harboring and training terrorists,''
the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, who founded School of the Americas
Watch in 1990, said Saturday.

The annual demonstration at the gates of Fort Benning
commemorates the Nov. 16, 1989, killings in El Salvador of
six Jesuit priests, to which some of the school's graduates
have been linked.

Military officials strongly deny Bourgeois' claims.
 

``Criminals often go on to commit crimes in spite of the
best efforts of the institutions they attend,'' said Brig.
Gen. Paul Eaton. ``People are focusing on the past. We are
focusing on the future.''

The Army closed its School of the Americas in December
after a decade of protests.

A month later, SOA was replaced by the Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation, which is operated by
the Department of Defense. The DOD says the institute's new
mission is to focus on 21st century challenges, not the
bloody Latin American insurgencies of the 1980s.

Twenty-six SOA Watch demonstrators were convicted of
trespass for participating in last year's funeral
procession representing those who died in Latin America.

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On the Net: ecdef.html

Western Hemisphere Institute for
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School of the Americas Watch:
http://www.soaw.org