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Genoa's Three Musketeers, and... A Gen Dyer come to judgment!

B. S. Raghavan

WHAT does Mr Tony Blair fancy himself to be? The Prime Minister of a civilised and democratic country such as the UK, respecting dissent and human rights, or the clone of the disgraced, disreputable and discredited Gen Dyer, the villain of India's own ve rsion of the Holocaust at Jalianwala Bagh, who wanted to teach a lesson in discipline and obedience to Indians by shooting down nearly 600 unarmed, innocent people in an enclosed space, barring its only exit with a solid phalanx of his soldiers? The aggr avating factor is that a galaxy of two other Musketeers should have thought it fit to show themselves as equally heartless and ruthless by giving him their support. Let me set the stage for tearing the masks of the Three Musketeers at Genoa to portray th em in their true colours.

Tragic death

When the demonstration against the charade of a G-8 meeting at Genoa ended on the first day (July 20) in the tragic death of a young protester, and the hospitalisation in a critical condition of a girl demonstrator mercilessly beaten up by the Italian Ca rabinieri, the host, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, was decent enough to come out promptly with a shocked and sympathetic response, and admonished his counterparts: ``We are trying to help the poor countries but we risk being seen as e ight people shut up in an ivory tower.'' Echoing his call for rethinking about the summit process, its structure and format, the president of the European Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, told reporters, ``There is a death, this is a matter of grief... I am utterly stunned''.

The French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, emphasised the need to take note of the message of the demonstrators who, he said, would not have assembled in such large numbers from various countries unless they felt deeply and strongly about the plight of the poor and debt-ridden countries.

``If men and women in the developed world, out of the goodness of their hearts, believe that something should be done to help the world's poor... then their voices should be listened to,'' said Gen Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's President, who had been inv ited and feted by the Big Eight, along with the leaders of South Africa, Bangladesh, Senegal, Algeria and El Salvador, to lend their symbolic presence on behalf of the developing countries (a mollifying gesture, be it noted, forced on G-8 by the very tho ught of the demonstration awaiting them!). ``We support and salute the so-called Seattle people, but we also support non-violence,'' declared Mr Alpha Oumar Konare, Mali's President, adding, ``We want to be listened to... and I don't think I would reject the support of these people.''

``Smokescreen''

Some of the leading non-governmental humanitarian organisations based in developed countries and devoting themselves to the service of the poor, hungry and needy in developing countries, minced no words in making clear that they shared the concerns and f rustrations of the protesters. They accused the leaders of creating an alibi for their own inaction and failure to fulfil past promises, deploring the fact that the summit of the world's wealthiest nations was merely offering token help to the poorest co untries. A few sample comments:

``These rich countries are in danger of producing another set of nice-sounding initiatives which do not address the causes of poverty. It is about time that the G8 came up with a new decisive deal on debt.''

-- Steve Tibbett, War on Want.

``The G8 are using the (global health) fund as a smokescreen to hide the fact that there is very little money going into the fight against global poverty and the spread of HIV-Aids in poor countries.''

-- Mark Curtis, Christian Aid.

A ``gesture summit where leaders declare themselves for good and against evil, then move swiftly on to the next issue.''

-- The World Development Movement.

``Hooligans''

Now to the first Musketeer, Mr Tony Blair. Even before leaving the shores of his country for Genoa, he had derived some sense of self-fulfilment by denouncing the demonstrators as ``hooligans''. Face to face with the intensity of discontent and idealism inherent in the protest, and in his eagerness to out-do himself, he had the temerity to scold the other seven world leaders that they should not bow to violent protests by abandoning this type of summit. Asked whether he thought Genoa should be the last meeting of this kind, he erupted in anger: ``What are we saying? That we should be prevented from meeting because of a group of protesters who are prepared to be so violent that they are trying to stop the summit from taking place? We are in danger of ge tting our thinking completely muddled about all this...The issues we are discussing are, in fact, the very issues some of these people say they are protesting about -- the environment, globalisation, Africa -- and we should be able to discuss those thing s and we should not be prevented or intimidated from doing so.'' Bravo, Mr Blair!

The second Musketeer is the seemingly easy-going and entertaining Mr George Bush, who, for good or evil, is presiding over the might and money of the richest and the most powerful country of the world. He pitched in, the base ball fan that he is, stating that free trade was the key to alleviating poverty, not the ``isolationism and protectionism'' of those demonstrating against globalisation. Addressing the demonstrators from the impregnable safe haven of Palazzo Ducale, he intoned, ``Instead of embraci ng policies that help the poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty and that is unacceptable to the United States.'' Period.

Next G-8 on remote, inaccessible Rocky Mountains!

The third Musketeer is the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, to whose lot the hosting of the next G-8 summit has fallen. He is unhappily casting about for a remote and inaccessible venue, out of the reach of the most determined demonstrators, an d unconnected by rail or air, and with only one road leading to it from a distant city.

The most inviting location from his perspective is reported to be an obscure corner of the Rocky Mountains which, he feels, can be ``defended'' against anti-globalisation protesters by one of the country's great natural barriers (as human beings have bee n proved to be powerless!) But, according to The Times , London, ``The choice of a mountain resort would probably signal the end of G8 summits as they have been held for the past quarter of a century. Hosting the events used to be regarded as a prestigio us opportunity for a city to bask in the world's attention for a few days. Now it has become little more than huge planning headache for organisers.''

It is a thousand pities that the leaders and organisations of the poor and developing countries should be keeping mum about the struggle being waged on their behalf by so many brave youths from rich nations, and encouraging the Eight-some at Genoa to thi nk that the protesters are some misguided, isolated, idiosyncratic gangs of bloodthirsty goons on the rampage irrationally giving vent to their spleen.