Hundreds arrested in police sweep in Washington at IMF
protests
Workers World Party candidates among first arrested
Police swept down on a legal demonstration April 15 to
make the first 500+ arrests of what may be thousands of
arrests as tens of thousands of young people try to stop the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank from meeting in
Washington.
The arrests came as over a thousand people marched
through downtown Washington from the Justice Department to
the White House in a demonstration called by the
International Action Center. The IAC had wanted to focus
attention of the anti-IMF protests on the prison-industrial
complex and the amount of repression within the United
States.
Among those picked up in the first sweep were Monica
Moorehead and Gloria La Riva, Workers World Party's
candidates for president and vice president in the 2000
elections. The two are workers and women of color, and had
represented their party in the 1996 election also.
Larry Holmes, WWP's presidential candidate in 1984 and
1988 was also arrested in the police sweep.
Speaking at a rally just before the police, without
warning or any apparent reason, charged into the crowd,
Moorehead stated her party's "complete solidarity with the
thousands of youths who wanted to shut down the IMF and World
Bank. These organizations are instruments to enforce Wall
Street's rule over the poor of the world. They facilitate the
exploitation of the vast majority of the human
race.
"But we also want to protest instruments of repression
that are at work right at home. There are now over 2 million
people in jail, most of them young people from the African
American, Latino and other communities of color. The prison
system is a concentration camp for oppressed communities in
this country.
"Even worse, it is a profitable system, in that federal,
state and local governments spend close to $40 billion a year
to keep people incarcerated, much of the prison system is
privatized. In addition, over a half-million of these
prisoners are forced to work in virtual slave-labor
conditions for private companies.
"That's why we call on the people to tear down the prison
walls and put an end to the prison-industrial complex,"
Moorehead said.
The WWP presidential candidate is also the national
coordinator of Millions for Mumia, the group organizing a
rally for Black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal this
coming May 7 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New
York.
"Mumia has been on death row 18 years for a crime he
didn't commit," said Moorehead. "And we are fighting to win a
new trial for him so he can stand shoulder to shoulder with
us at protests like these, against the IMF and World
Bank."
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