(IPS) So much attention was focused on policing at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in New York City that the core issue  the widening gap separating rich from poor within and between countries  was obscured.

Much was said about addressing the problems of developing economies during the five-day annual event, which ended Monday, but little commitment to action was shown.

Some corporate magnates, derided by protesters as exploiters and profiteers, offered amends of sorts: Microsoft's Bill Gates announced a multi-billion dollar fund to fight Aids in Africa, for example. Such moves, however, were not matched by clear commitments to greater corporate transparency and respect for human rights, labour, and the environment.

"The World Economic Forum was nothing but window-dressing," said Eric Laursen of Another World Is Possible, an umbrella group of student, leftwing, peace, and direct-action groups formed to mobilise protestors. "If you hear more noises with social messages from business executives, it's just a public relations stunt. They are aware of the changing public mood."

The mood of this year's annual jamboree of world leaders and business executives was dominated by last September's terrorist attacks in the United States. Well before the protests here got under way, activists had been careful to emphasise their demonstrations would be peaceful and that many of their fellow activists had chosen to keep away from New York by attending a parallel World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Unwelcome govt control

While the tone of the protests outside WEF was more subdued compare with other recent economic forums, the texture of the debate inside remained essentially unchanged: government control over private enterprises is bad.

Clearly welcome, however, was government control over segments of the public perceived as potentially disruptive of sessions at the elite Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Protest organisers said  and local authorities confirmed  that police deployed some 4,000 officers, many in plainclothes to infiltrate the demonstrations. This, the protesters said, served to overwhelm their events and violated their right to peaceful assembly.

In its first major test since taking office early this year, the administration of media mogul turned Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent millions of dollars on police overtime as law enforcement officials turned mid-town Manhattan into a fortress to protect some 3,000 WEF participants.

Any suggestion that the costs were too onerous was pre-empted by local media. The New York Times announced the event generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the city. It said 201 people were arrested, all but one of them charged with disorderly conduct. According to Times, fewer than 10,000 demonstrators came to New York, compared with 50,000 at the 1999 World Trade Organisation meetings in Seattle, USA, and 100,000 at last year's Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy.

Bloomberg has been quick to pat his own back. "In terms of sending a message in helping us in soliciting other events going into the future," he said, "all you have got to do is look at what happened when the World Economic Forum was (held) elsewhere, compare it with what happened in New York."

This was the first time the WEF was held outside the Swiss resort of Davos. In recent years, townsfolk there have voiced increasing dissatisfaction with the commotion and security measures prompted by the annual gala.

Converts

Not everyone shared Bloomberg's assessment. The Anti-Capitalist Coalition said both governments and terrorists ultimately play the same game, namely: "The manipulation of people's sense of fear and insecurity for political gains."

The protestors seemed to find few sympathisers in a city intent on revamping its image and kick starting business after last September's devastation.

Yet, they drew diverse causes and individuals to their ranks: indigenous people from Latin America who came to give voice to their compatriots' complaints of expropriation and abuse at the hands of multinational corporations, spiritualists and socialists who decried narrow and aggressive business interests as anathema to happiness, and workers concerned about the ravaging effects of capital mobility and privatised social pension schemes.

And their calls for alternatives to corporate-led globalisation may have won a few converts. In a commentary, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said it is tempting to view the protesters "as just those who take to the streets, smash up McDonald's or confront riot police.'' Nevertheless, it added, business failures of the past year have shown that their concerns deserve a hearing equal to those of the 1,000 most powerful corporations  whose representatives hobnob with public policy makers and celebrities at the WEF.