-Caveat Lector-
Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 in the Guardian of London
Cyber War Declared on World Bank
by John Vidal and Charlotte Denny
Protesters threatened last night to use "cyber sit-ins"
to derail a high-profile development
conference organized by the World Bank, after the
Washington-based body announced it
would hold the conference online to avoid demonstrations.
The bank is the latest casualty of the increasingly
violent climate surrounding international
summits since protesters disrupted global trade talks in
Seattle at the end of 1999. It
decided to hold its annual conference on development
economics on the internet after
thousands of protesters threatened to descend next week
on Barcelona, the original venue.
But the emerging anti-globalization protest movement
warned that a virtual conference was
just a vulnerable as a live gathering.
"One skilled IT protester could easily crash the whole
event. It may be seen as a challenge
to scupper the conference", said one protester/hacker who
specializes in IT protests.
Cyber-protest is a well-developed tool of protest groups
who use computers to exchange
information, organize demonstrations and bombard
political leaders with demands.
Greenpeace has more than 100,000 supporters prepared to
use their computers as a
protest weapon and claims numerous successes persuading
corporations to change
policies after subjecting them to a barrage of email.
"If the bank wants contributions to this conference from
around the world then they could
regret this," said Roger Higman of Friends of the Earth.
Earlier this year the pressure group
brought down the White House website several times with
more than 100,000 people
protesting against President Bush's stance on climate
change.
The bank admitted that the internet conference could also
be besieged by groups opposed
to its economic prescriptions for third world economies.
The sessions will be interactive,
allowing participants to email questions to the speakers,
but also providing an opportunity
for protesters to attack.
"We've taken reasonable precautions but if there is a
major effort to close us down, I can't
promise that the computers will hold up," said a bank
spokesman.
If the protesters succeed in disrupting the conference,
"that will reflect badly on them and
their attitude towards free speech and freedom of
discussion," he added. The topic of the
conference is Globalization, Poverty and Wealth.
Globalize Resistance, a socialist group which intends to
take thousands of people to Genoa
for next month's G8 meeting, said: "We can still party in
Barcelona and have more fun than
if we were in front of computer screens. They can run,
but they cannot hide."
The bank's annual meeting in Prague last September was
surrounded by thousands of
protesters who battled with the police.
Explaining the decision to abandon the Barcelona event, a
World Bank spokeswoman,
Caroline Anstey, said: "A conference on poverty reduction
should take place in a peaceful
atmosphere free from heckling, violence and intimidation."
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