The World Economic Forum - Opposition Inside and Outside

While thousands of people marched in the streets of New York and 60,000 met in Porto Alegre, Brazil to oppose the policies of neo-liberal globalization, many of the participants in the World Economic Forum (WEF) also raised their voices against the forces of globalization. The WEF, which has been held in Davos, Switzerland for the past 31 years, is a gathering of the world's business elite to consider mutual problems and make deals. This year's forum was moved to New York because the Swiss government is no longer willing to foot the bill for security costs.

Despite the public facade of unity, this year's forum was marked by extensive bitterness and criticisms of American unilateralist policies, as well as its over-reliance on the use of force in the "war on terrorism", inattention to the environment and health care and the growing inequality between rich and poor.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine complained of U.S. "indifference" towards its allies. Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad stated: "There's a feeling in Washington that anything that is not American cannot be right." Indonesian lawyer Jusuf Wanandi asked: "How can global government evolve with one dominant power?"

At the close of the forum United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that the world risked new terrorism and the collapse of the global economy if it failed to deal seriously with Third World poverty and disease.

Stung by the criticisms, U.S. officials responded with further threats. Secretary of State Colin Powell threatened that the U.S. will "go after terrorism wherever it threatened free men and women." Meanwhile, U.S. treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defended Washington's refusal of emergency aid to Argentina, stating that it would be unfair to make American "plumbers and carpenters pay for someone else's bad decisions." Former President Bill Clinton defended the Bush regime, stating: "We are attacked for unilateralism and we are attacked when we didn't intervene. I think we can't win for losing."

The U.S. attitude was greeted by further complaints by many delegates.