Washington-US security forces are gearing up for violent protests at next month's IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington, and the city's police chief said yesterday he could be "hard-pressed" to maintain order.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey said more than 100,000 demonstrators could pour into the capital to protest the Sept. 29-30 meetings, continuing a trend in recent years to disrupt such high-profile gatherings.
Last year, Mr Ramsey and his department won international accolades for their handling of protests against meetings of the World Bank and IMF in the capital, with Mr Ramsey intervening personally on several occasions to control crowds.
The city is drawing up what it hopes will be a watertight plan to curb the kind of violence that marred the G8 summit in Genoa last month when one protester died, more than 200 were hurt and property damage ran into tens of millions of dollars.
More than 3,000 additional police will be brought in from nearby areas and one option is to erect a giant fence to cordon off the White House and most of the area where the meetings are taking place.
The World Bank and the IMF announced last week they would cut a week of annual meetings down to two days in the face of expected protests by a myriad of groups against corporate globalisation and international financial policies.