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02/02/2006:

"Davos and New Orleans, Neoliberal Twins"

DAVOS, Switzerland - The Swiss Alpine ski resort of Davos has never suffered a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which left 1,326 people dead and 6,644 missing after passing through the southeastern U.S. city of New Orleans last August.

In fact, the cultural, social and climatic differences between the cities are so vast that they seem to share almost nothing in common, except perhaps for the fact that both attract large numbers of tourists.

But according to New Orleans community activist Jay Arena, there is another common link that the two cities share: the power exerted by politically conservative, economically neoliberal power elites.

Davos is the host city for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering of the world's political, economic and business elites, described by Arena as "a group of unelected, unresponsive, unaccountable capitalist elites meeting in private" to chart out the future of the entire planet.

This process is strikingly similar to the Bring New Orleans Back Commission established by Mayor Ray Nagin to oversee post-hurricane reconstruction efforts, Arena told IPS.

Many have criticised the mayor's commission as being highly stacked with business leaders and real estate developers. As a result, Arena noted, people like real estate mogul Joseph Canizaro, "one of the biggest contributors to the (George W.) Bush administration," will now have the power to make plans that will affect "the lives of tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people in New Orleans."

"And at the same time, they try to co-opt some community organisations and labour unions to legitimise their criminal enterprise," he added.
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