A communist activist group is allegedly responsible for an explosion on Thursday at a hotel in Davos, close to where top executives and world leaders were meeting for the Davos World Economic Forum, according to Reuters.
Devin Wenig, CEO of Thomson Reuters’ Markets division, who was in a breakfast meeting at the hotel when the explosion happened, said: “A huge boom went off. The whole ceiling lifted. Everyone was convinced it was a bomb.” He added: “It took a half hour to reassemble the meeting.”
“I can confirm that there has been an explosion in a storage room in the basement of the hotel,” Thomas Hobi, a spokesman for the local police said. “There has been minor damage but nobody was injured.”
A group calling itself Revolutionary Perspective said in a statement on an activist website it had targeted the luxury Posthotel with a firebomb and said Swiss ministers and representatives of top bank UBS were staying there.
“Our fight against the dictatorship of capital is focused on the social alternative to capitalism: communism,” the group said in the statement. No word on whether this group is also against dictatorship of any kind, such as the communist dictatorships of Stalin, Lenin and Mao, which were genocidal, ineffective and allegedly backed by corporate opportunists.
The Davos World Economic Forum brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment.
As Andrew Sorkin wrote in the NY Times, “[a]n invitation to the meeting is supposed to be considered an exclusive honor” that does not come cheap.
“There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.”
“But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.”
“Of course, most chief executives don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.”
“And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.) This year, all Strategic Partners are required to invite at least one woman along in an effort to diversify the attendee list.”