by Walden Bello*
Honolulu is bracing for Pearl Harbor II in the first 11 days of May. All
the ingredients are there.
First, thousands of Japanese tourists are flying in, the foot-soldiers of
an annual invasion popularly known as "Golden Week."
Second, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), one of the most controversial multilateral
aid agencies, is holding its 34th Annual Meeting at the Honolulu Convention
Center near Waikiki, meaning that protesters will descend on the city along
with the tourists.
Third, the Honolulu Police Department is on war footing, armed to the teeth
with new weapons recently purchased for use during the ADB meeting. Honolulu
media now carry regular features on riot preparations.
And fourth, there is a chance that President George W. Bush will accept an
ADB invitation to address the meeting.
Hawaii's tourist industry is fretting, worried that Golden Week, one of the
most lucrative times of the year owing to the descent onto the fabled islands
of tourists with tremendous purchasing power, might not materialize this year
owing to fears of violence. The image that haunts Robert Fishman, head of
the Hawaii Tourist Authority, and other Hawaii officials is that of Pike's
Market on the Seattle waterfront on Nov. 30, 1999, when aggressive policemen
in Darth Vader outfits started clubbing people, failing to distinguish tourists
from the peaceful demonstrators that took refuge in one of that city's prime
attractions.
A fatalistic sense that a Seattle is in the making is felt on all sides, including
the ADB. Ian Gill, a senior external relations officer of the ADB, has thrown
up his hands, claiming, according to one ADB source, that the preparations
are "totally chaotic."
The main source of escalating tension is the police, a view that is shared
even by ADB personnel. One senior Bank official told a member of the Hawaii
Organizing Committee for the event, that the ADB was concerned about the Hawaii
Police rattling their sabers and taking advantage of the annual meeting to
acquire funding to modernize their riot-control equipment for other uses.
Arguing that they had to prepare for the "worst-case scenario,"
the police initially demanded $7 million for the purchase of sophisticated
weapons and equipment.
In the lead-up to the event, the police have already moved to restrict traditional
civil liberties. Police have banned the standard free-speech zone near the
Convention Center. This means that there is no place next to the Convention
Center where ADB opponents and critics can express their opinions. The police
also tried to declare two sites suitable for large rallies, Waikiki's Ala
Wai Community Park and the Ala Moana Beach Park, off limits to demonstrators.
ADBWatch, the coalition of groups organizing the protests, claims that already,
people have been questioned and motorists stopped for having "Shut Down
ADB" bumper stickers. It has also denounced police efforts to obtain
the authority to instantly arrest anybody engaging in "sleeping activities"
in a public part or on a beach, including Waikiki. A bill to this effect will
be heard by the Honolulu City Council in the next few days, as will a measure
allowing police to use stun guns, which are currently banned in Hawaii.
Other constitutionally questionable legislation has already been passed, however,
including banning "possession with intent to use of any device capable
of emitting an obnoxious substance."
Backing up Honolulu's 2,000 policemen are 5,500 members of the Hawaii Army
and Air Force National Guard. In fact, National Guard personnel will double
up as drivers for ADB delegates for security purposes-at US taxpayers' expense,
it must be added. Also getting into the act are private security agencies,
with one ADB senior official expressing alarm that burly Samoans are being
hired to "manage" demonstrators at the Hawaii Convention Center.
That police and state officials have gone overboard in security preparations
is evident to many in Hawaii. A local newspaper quoted Honolulu Public Safety
Director Ted Sakai as admitting that "95 per cent of protests will be
peaceful." An ADB senior official reports that Hawaiians are very sensitive
to what they see as possible oppression by the authorities through. purchase
of police equipment and the passing of restrictive laws in the Hawaii legislature.
The way the security question is overshadowing everything else is disturbing
ADB officials who were initially eager to use the Honolulu meeting to "clean
up" the ADB's well-deserved image of being an agency that uproots people,
promotes socially disruptive development, and destroys the environment. Officials
at the Manila-based agency are, in fact, furious that what they see as the
"mishandling" of the security issue by Hawaii officials is giving
their agency an image associated with police repression. A senior member of
a preparatory mission to the Honolulu in March complained to University of
Hawaii officials about the atmosphere of negativity about the Bank and its
activities that now blankets the city.
Yet, the ADB has to share responsibility for escalating the expectations of
confrontation, according to a member of the Hawaii Organizing Committee for
the event. "They [the ADB] could have told us right from the beginning
that practically all the protests that have been staged at its previous annual
meetings were peaceful," the source, who wished to remain anonymous,
said. Even the 2,000-strong protests by fisherfolk and farmers in Chiang Mai
last year were exemplary for the way they combined militance with non-violence.
Instead, when it moved the site of its 34th annual meeting from Seattle to
Honolulu, Bank representatives told Hawaii authorities it was doing this because,
unlike Seattle, Honolulu was "peaceful and free of demonstrators."
Once it became clear, however, that it was no longer immune to demonstrators
even in Paradise, the initial requests it made for security "triggered
runaway fears in the mind of a police force obsessed with the Seattle example."
"If you prepare for violence, you will trigger violence," says Cha
Smith, who works with ADBWatch. They are turning the Aloha State into a Police
State."
So what would you do if you were a Japanese tourist in Honolulu during Golden
Week? "Better carry a gas mask and a hard hat," she advises. "Better
yet, don't come to Hawaii until after May 15."