IMF chief gets Bush treatment
Posted by meb at October 2nd, 2009
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was in for a nasty surprise as he gave a lecture to students at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. One protester hurled a shoe at the IMF chief and another one tried to unfurl a banner. Both were detained. Answering questions from students, Strauss-Kahn says the IMF ‘will be there when Turkey wants it to be’
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, was greeted by a shoe-thrower during his speech to students at Istanbul’s Bilgi University on Thursday. The shoe missed the IMF chief and hit a student who was asking Strauss-Kahn a question.
The protester, Selçuk Özbek, was detained for a couple of hours and then released. He was working at the socialist Birgün newspaper, according to local media. After the incident, Zeynep Çatalkaya, a student, tried to open a banner but was stopped by security forces.
As the protesters were taken out of the venue, another group protested the IMF and the government by shouting slogans such as, “Go away IMF,” “IMF is the thief, AKP is the collaborator.”
On its Web site, Birgün newspaper published the story with the headline, “IMF beat it!”
In scattered protests outside the university, 17 protesters were detained, the police said. Students from the private Bilgi and Koç universities and those from Istanbul Technical University attended the conference.
After the incident, Strauss-Khan joked with the student who was hit by the shoe, asking, “What is it about you that these guys do not like?”
Answering questions from students, the IMF chief said there was “no rush and tension” between the IMF and Turkey. “The IMF will be there when Turkey wants it to be,” he said. “Right now, every country has problems, and Turkey is no exception.”
During his speech, Strauss-Kahn claimed the IMF had predicted the timing and depth of the crisis beforehand. “By the beginning of 2008 and end of 2007, the IMF had predicted that there will be a great mess,” he said.
How IMF fared during crisis
“The first duty of the IMF is surveillance and forecast,” he said. “In this, the IMF has succeeded 50 percent. Our second duty is policy advice. In this area I can say that the IMF did a good job. The third duty is financing, an area that the IMF is very rigid about [at the moment].”
One student recalled the Argentina crisis and said the IMF is “not a solution but a problem,” as Strauss-Kahn said Argentina is a particular example. “We should look at Asian countries such as South Korea,” he suggested.
“Countries that request money from the IMF always have huge domestic problems,” he said. “And to reduce budget deficits is not an easy task.”
The IMF chief also said global economic recovery has started and that in most countries “growth is coming back,” but unemployment remains a huge problem.
Countries will continue to work in the future, he said, recalling the rising clout of the Group of 20 nations.
Despite critical questions from students, the IMF chief looked relaxed. “He told things that we already know,” said Ali Armutçu, 21, a Bilgi University student. “He tried to express himself in a sympathetic way. The protest at the end came as no surprise to me.”
“I think the protest was very negative,” said Dilek Koçal, 21. “No one should do such a thing. I think the conference was very informative in general.”
Throwing shoes as a form of protest became famous worldwide when Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, threw his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush last December.
source: Hurriyet daily news
Related posts:
