IMF staffers resigned to calling off meetings Thursday, September 13, 2001 By Mark Egan, Reuters WASHINGTON — Staff at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were resigned Wednesday that their upcoming annual meetings at the end of September would be called off, saying an announcement was expected within days. "The meetings are going to be called off," an IMF source told Reuters, adding that the lender was awaiting word from the U.S. Treasury — the official host of the Washington summit — before making an official announcement. The source said an announcement was "at least two days away." D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey on Tuesday urged the international lenders to call off their meetings in the aftermath of terror attacks that caused both towers of New York's famed World Trade Center to collapse. The attacks also saw a hijacked plane crash into the Pentagon, costing many lives and putting local police and emergency workers into crisis mode. Washington Mayor Anthony Williams told local radio station WAMU Wednesday there were "strong arguments" in favor of calling off the meetings in light of security concerns. With tens of thousands of protesters expected at the meetings, slated to take place at the end of September, sources at the World Bank said the lenders had no desire to put Washington through any more trouble so soon after Tuesday's horrific events. Early estimates of the loss of life at the Pentagon range from 100 to 800 people. "They will leave it for a couple of days before making an announcement," one World Bank staffer told Reuters. Among the problems posed for local police is how to manage crowd control in the face of an expected massive protest in Washington. Police had said they would rely heavily on officers drafted from New York and elsewhere to help staff the event. But given the massive operations in downtown Manhattan, it now seems impossible for the city to spare its own much-needed police to help Washington tackle antiglobalization protesters. Protests at global financial summits have grown increasingly violent recently, with one protester killed in clashes with police at a mid-July summit in Genoa, Italy. IMF spokesman Bill Murray and World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey both said no decision had been made but that the meetings will be discussed in the coming days. "This is an issue that will be reviewed in the coming days," Murray said. As the host country of the meetings, the United States advises the World Bank and IMF about security details of the meetings in Washington. Police were bracing for as many as 100,000 protesters to take part in violent demonstrations against the policies of both institutions. One of the main protest organizers, the Mobilization for Global Justice, is mulling its options including whether to curtail or downsize some of the protests. The annual meetings bring together finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world to discuss the global economic situation. The event, currently scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30, had already been shortened to two days because of the threat of violent protests. In the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941, three hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center on Tuesday. Two of the planes demolished the New York landmark's two 110-story towers that have symbolized U.S. financial might. Later in the day a third and smaller WTC tower that had been burning also collapsed. Officials fear the number of victims could climb into the thousands at the trade center, where 40,000 people worked.
