GENEVA - Swiss civil society activists are staging demonstrations throughout the country to voice their opposition to the World Economic Forum and its upcoming annual meeting of the world's business, economic and political elite in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

A number of events were organised over the weekend, including a major demonstration in the northwestern Swiss town of Reconvilier, where hundreds of trade unionists marched to protest Swissmetal's decision to shut down its plant there, a major local industry.

The march headed up by workers and their families reflects the growing resistance to "the arrogance and influence of economic power," said the heads of the organisations that participated in the protest.

Throughout the coming week, other demonstrations in opposition to the Davos meet will be held in Berne, the Swiss capital, as well as numerous other cities, including Basel, St. Gallen, Lucerne, Chur, Thun and Lugano.

This year's World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos is taking place Jan. 25-29.

What is most significant about this week's demonstrations is that for the first time in the 34-year history of the WEF meet, protests are being held outside of Davos itself, located in the canton of Grison in southeastern Switzerland.

Daniele Jenni of the Swiss Green Party told IPS that the participating groups found themselves forced to give up the practice of protesting at the actual meeting venue because "during the WEF, basic rights are not recognised in Davos, and much less the right to demonstrate."

Davos and the entire canton of Grison are "under police occupation during this entire period," remarked Jenni, who is coordinating the demonstrations being staged by civil society groups throughout Switzerland from her headquarters in Berne.

In order to hold a protest in Davos during the WEF meet, the participants would have to submit to police searches before entering the area and then be registered on a list of "extremists" compiled by the Swiss federal police, she explained.

These conditions are "unacceptable," she stressed, because it is impossible to fully exercise one's basic rights, such as the right to dissent and to demonstrate, after being subjected to these "humiliating procedures."

Opponents of the annual WEF gathering view it as "a private forum where an elite comprised of powerful men (and very few women) meet to dictate political priorities and discuss big business deals," commented Iris Widmer of the Swiss affiliate of ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens).

Widmer said that the consequences of these policies can be seen on a daily basis, in the war against Iraq, the poverty and hunger in numerous countries of the developing South, the destruction of social security safety nets in the countries of the industrialised North, massive unemployment, environmental destruction, and the unprecedented profits made by transnational corporations.

Jenni maintained that the Davos forum is used by the "rich and powerful of the world" to impose their own interests, "the interests of profits and power, to the detriment of the majority of the world's population, particularly in the Third World."

The protests that begin over the weekend in Switzerland are aimed at demonstrating that "there is resistance to this, that the emphasis on profits cannot be accepted as something natural," said Jenni.

For the seventh consecutive year, ATTAC Switzerland is hosting a conference known as The Other Davos, to discuss proposals from alternative grassroots organisations and encourage social mobilisation against the WEF, Widmer told IPS.

ATTAC was founded in France in 1998 as an "international movement for democratic control of financial markets and their institutions," and has affiliates in dozens of countries around the world.

The Other Davos will take place this Friday, Jan. 27, in Zurich. Keynote speakers will include Nahla Chahal, a France-based sociology professor and coordinator of civilian missions to Palestine; Tania Quiroz Mendieta, a Bolivian activist involved in the fight against the privatisation of water; and Jay Arena, a U.S. community and peace activist who will talk about the difficulties faced by the poor, working-class residents of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The conference participants will discuss the "war on poverty" declared by those responsible for "neoliberal policies and imperialist wars," said Widmer, referring to the campaign launched by the G8 - the group of the world's eight most powerful countries - at its summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July 2005.

In particular, they will analyse whether this "war on poverty" announced by the G8 is not in fact merely "a new form of imperialist domination by the North over the countries of the South."

But while the rich and powerful of the world continue to meet at forums like those held by the G8 and in Davos, there is growing worldwide resistance to the ideology of privatisation and the all-powerfulness of the market, added Jenni.

This has become especially evident in Latin America, in countries like Venezuela and now Bolivia, which will no longer accept this ideology imposed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she remarked.

Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service

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