Protests in Turkey at IMF, World Bank Annual Meetings

Protesters who attempted to march on the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Istanbul on Tuesday came under fire from Turkish police using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

Police also drew batons and, according to the Voice of America, one senior police officer waved his revolver at the protesters as clashes took place in Taksim square, which is in the center of Turkey's largest city, and is said to be a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) from where the meetings of the IMF and World Bank were taking place. Helicopters were flying overhead in support of the police as they dealt with an estimated 6,000 protesters, eventually arresting 100 of them. Bloomberg reports that one bystander, a man in his sixties, died from a heart attack as left-wing activists, anti-globalization groups, liberal democrats and trade unionists joined forces to vent their anger at two organizations who allegedly are not popular in Turkey because of the spending cuts they have demanded of Turkish authorities, who have been grappling with inflation and attempting to grow the country's economy. An increase in unemployment and weaker growth have apparently resulted from agreements made between the IMF and Turkey that required the spending cuts be made. The protesters were particularly angry at the fact that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated on Monday that the signing of another agreement with the IMF is imminent. Banks and businesses, including a McDonald's restaurant, were damaged by protesters, whilst bystanders and shoppers required medical treatment as they suffered from the effects of tear gas. Members of the outlawed Turkish Workers’ and Peasants Liberation Army (TIKKO), the armed wing of the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist, participated in the protests and were seen carrying banners that read “Get out IMF, this is our country”. At the two-day meetings themselves, they are due to end on Wednesday, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the Washington-based IMF, spelled out the dangers facing the emerging economies because of the global financial meltdown. He said:

Nineteen million people are about to be put into extreme poverty because of the crisis. What we are talking about is not only higher unemployment or lower purchasing power in the lower income countries; it is about life and death. We could see in those countries, social unrest, political instability, or even war

Nevertheless Mr Strauss-Kahn, selected as the IMF's 10th Managing Director in September 2007, added that international cooperation had ensured that the global recession, as bad as it has been, had not been even more damaging. Last week Mr Strauss-Kahn, a member of the Socialist Party in France, gave a lecture at the Bilgi University in Istanbul and Bloomberg says that whilst he was doing so a Turkish student threw a shoe at him.