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Posted February 5th, 2002 1:00 PM
The Real Reason the Forum Bigwigs Are Here: The Swiss Didn’t Want the
Hassle
Global Retreat
by Ron Feemster
In November, the World Economic Forum announced with great fanfare
that it would hold its annual meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel to
show solidarity with New York. That may, in fact, be why it came here
last week. But that doesn't begin to explain what drove the annual
gathering of multi- millionaire CEOs and politicians out of
Switzerland in the first place.
The Forum fled because it failed to manage the political and
financial problems triggered by demonstrations the past two years.
Rampaging anarchists scored a major victory in Davos in 2001. They
disrupted the Forum's placid marriage to the sleepy ski resort, which
had hosted the annual meeting for 31 years. Davos, first famous as
the setting for Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, is not like Seattle or
Genoa, cities that might lose a battle to protesters but never have
to see them again. Davos is home to the World Economic Forum. If the
Forum can't keep the peace, it has to go elsewhere.
"It's just too small a town for big demonstrations," says Hans Klaus, spokesman for
the Swiss Justice and Police Ministry. "We haven't found a good way to let all of
those people in there at once."
Demonstrators show up, like it or not. Crowds took to the streets here and in Zurich
last weekend to protest the Forum's role in globalization. In Zurich, police arrested
54 protesters Friday night, and disturbances cause
d $180,000 in property damage, according to published reports.
Dealing with demonstrators is expensive. Security costs for a meeting in Davos have
exploded from $175,000 in 1998 to an estimated $6 million to $9 million this year,
according to Klaus. Convincing the provincial governme
nt of Graubünden to swallow its 62 percent share of the tab was tough. But parceling
out the security tasks proved to be even more difficult. Well aware that a large,
violent demonstration in Davos could spell the end of
the Forum, Swiss authorities turned back protesters before they reached the meeting in
2001. This strategy moved the security problems to neighboring cities and sowed the
seeds of Davos's political undoing.
Protesters were not allowed into Davos last year because, in 2000, they had attacked a
McDonald's and smashed shop windows along the main street of town. In 2001, the
authorities created "Fortress Davos," and blocked road
s and searched trains on Saturday, the traditional demonstration day. Forced to turn
back, about 1000 protesters regrouped in Zurich, where they burned automobiles and
battled police water cannons. Ironically, Zurich's ri
ot police were 90 miles away in Davos and had to be helicoptered back. Zurich
residents and businesses blamed their police for dedicating local resources to the
rich visitors in the mountains, and then failing to keep ord
er at home. Davos's security woes had become a national problem.
A national police problem in Switzerland becomes a nightmare overnight. Each of the
country's 26 cantons (provinces) has an independent police force, as do most cities
and towns. Most of these forces are tiny by American
standards. The city of Zurich (pop. 300,000) has 2000 uniformed officers. The canton
of Zurich (pop. 1.2 million) employs another 2000 officers. These are the largest
forces in a country of 7.2 million people. The police
contingent that boarded helicopters to quell the Zurich riot numbered fewer than 50
officers. (This year, the NYPD dedicated 4000 officers to protect the Forum, freezing
a three-block zone around the Waldorf-Astoria.)
To police the Forum, each of the 26 cantons must send a few officers to the meeting,
as almost all have done in the past. But after the unrest in Zurich, no canton wanted
to be caught short if anti-Forum demonstrations sp
read across the nation. Zurich refused to send officers with experience in quelling
demonstrations. At most, Zurich police would stand by, waiting to be choppered in if
it were clear that Zurich remained peaceful. Similar
ly bitter negotiations with other cantons began in June, and they were still going on
in October, when the Forum was forced to commit to Davos or find a new home.
"Money was not the biggest problem," says Pascal Couchepin, the Swiss minister of
economic affairs. "Finding money in Switzerland is easier than finding police
officers."
In the meantime, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, which altered the Forum's
agenda as certainly as it changed the global political climate. Klaus Schwab, the
founder and head of the Forum, was in New York on Se
ptember 11, meeting with Rabbi Arthur Schneier of the Park East Synagogue when the
planes struck. After Schwab returned to Geneva, the off-season headquarters of the
Forum, he and his staff tore up plans for a meeting on
the impending global recession and rewrote the program based on a new and insecure
world.
As Charles McLean, communications director for the Forum, tells the story, Schwab was
toying early on with the idea of moving the 2002 meeting to New York. "He just brought
it up as an idle remark in a meeting, but no one
took it very seriously," McLean recalls. Meanwhile, on October 1, the Forum sent out
2500 invitations to the meeting in Davos. The negotiations about costs and security
continued. The Forum agreed to pay for relocating p
olice officers, which would have come to about 20 percent of the total bill, according
to McLean. (He notes that the Forum did not save money by coming to New York.) The
Swiss federal government committed $1.9 million to
protect visiting heads of state and dignitaries. Asked about the ongoing security
negotiations, McLean recalls them as "background noise." He says Swiss federal
authorities assured the Forum that security questions could
be solved in time for the meeting.
That noise may have been a faint buzz in Geneva, but in Zurich and Graubünden, the
canton that hosts the Forum, it was deafening. Esther Maurer, the Zurich police chief,
a Social Democrat who is also a city councilmember
standing for re-election on March 3, continued to balk at sending officers to Davos
unless two conditions were met. First, the officers must not be needed in Zurich.
Second, the Forum would have to change its format to be
come friendlier to demonstrators. Those seeking dialogue should be offered the
opportunity to join the discussion, rather than being shut out, Maurer said.
Late in October, the Forum dispatched two board members to New York to pitch Mayor
Giuliani on holding the meeting here. McLean recalls: "The mayor looked at his
advisers and asked, 'Does anybody think this is a bad idea?
' " On November 7, Klaus Schwab held a press conference at the Waldorf announcing the
Forum's "solidarity" with New York.
When the Forum announced that it would leave Switzerland, negotiations took on renewed
urgency. The parties agreed to bring the meeting back to Davos in 2003. Esther
Maurer's conditions were met. The Swiss government and
the Forum endowed a foundation called In the Spirit of Davos, which aims to
"institutionalize a dialogue with demonstrators," according to Economic Affairs
Minister Couchepin. Swiss Justice and Police Minister Ruth Metzle
r-Arnold called a meeting of the 26 provincial police departments, and the security
costs were redistributed.
But major questions remain for the demonstrators. They have succeeded, so far, in
rocking the foundation of the World Economic Forum. Do they want to join the party? Or
will the Forum be driven out of Davos forever?
Read more of the Voice's coverage of the anti-globalization protests outside the World
Economic Forum at the Waldorf-Astoria.
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