Jakarta – Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will launch a big rally during the upcoming 39th Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Bali from May 2 until May 5.

The protest will focus on the bank's failure to help get poor and developing Asian countries out of a vicious cycle of debt entrapment.

"We have not made any calculation yet, but the number might reach 1,000 protesters just from Indonesia," the Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI) foreign affairs department head Muhammad Ikhwan said on Tuesday. "We have also coordinated with fellow NGOs from Asian countries to join the rally.

The NGO coalition also includes the Women's Union, the Anti-Debt Coalition (KAU), the NGO Forum on ADB, the People's Coalition for Fisheries Justice, Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI) and the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam).

KAU chairman Dani Setiawan opposed the signing of another foreign loan agreement during this crisis.

"The government said the meeting would discuss ways to safeguard the economy in the midst of the global crisis through loan deals. But the truth is that such deals will do nothing to improve our economy, but only make it worse," he said.

"The existence of international monetary institutions, such as ADB, with their massive distribution of foreign loans to third world countries has resulted in periodic financial crises since the 1980s," he said.

According to the coalition at least 16.4 percent of Indonesian government foreign debts is owed to ADB, while another 13.6 percent is owed to the World Bank. The ADB has lent US$10.9 billion to Indonesia, the bank's largest debtor and fourth largest shareholder.

Total debt and dependency are likely to increase as the country has planned to sign another agreement in which it will receive an annual loan worth $1 billion per year until 2010 from ADB, the coalition said.

"It's indisputable that the government has (become) somewhat addicted to foreign debt like a junkie on drugs," Coordinator for the NGO Forum on ADB Titi Suntoro said.