Sept. 28-Oct. 4
Convergence of protest groups to target Washington bosses,
imperialist bankers
By Gery
Armsby
No less than 400 organizations, large and small, have
pledged support for a week of protests, teach-ins, concerts,
rallies and direct actions in Washington, D.C., during the
upcoming biannual meeting of the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF).
National demonstrations initiated by several coalitions over
the past months have drawn wide endorsement and response from
many sectors of the progressive movement, including
environmentalists, women's groups, anti-racist youths, labor
organizations, death penalty opponents, anti-war activists and
anti-capitalists.
The centerpiece of the fall activist convergence will be
weeklong direct actions against meetings of the IMF and World
Bank, two institutions hated around the world for forcing
privatization, economic austerity and anti-worker reforms on
many developing nations.
Events targeting the Bush administration, U.S. intervention
in Latin America and specific policies that affect the working
class will also be part of the week. Each action promises to
turn out large numbers.
In order to ensure successful demonstrations 10 weeks from
now, many dedicated activists are working virtually around the
clock printing leaflets, updating Web sites and solving the
logistical problems of feeding, housing and providing
transportation for tens of thousands of people who will travel
to Washington for the historic convergence.
D.C. police say they intend to bring in 3,600 mercenaries
from police forces in other cities to help fortify Washington
against protesters. The IMF announced that its meeting venue
will be moved to downtown World Bank headquarters to avoid
protests. Activists say they expect more of these types of
maneuvers from the state as the protest dates draw nearer.
But it is the growing protest movement that seems to have
President George W. Bush, the IMF and the World Bank on the
defensive.
Before leaving for a G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, Bush spoke
to World Bank officials July 17 and proposed that, in addition
to making loans, the "development bank" should allocate up to
50 percent of its funds "to the poorest countries ... as grants
for education, health, nutrition, water supply, sanitation and
other human needs."
Co-opting a popular slogan of the anti-globalization
movement, Bush wryly commented that his proposal "doesn't
merely drop the debt, it helps stop the debt."
This carefully calculated but hollow gesture will convince
few among the throngs of determined protesters already prepared
to greet the U.S. president in Genoa. Nor is it likely to win
over those who are planning protests in Bush's own backyard.
Bush made no mention of where the money will come from. Will
corporations be taxed or will it eventually come out of Social
Security?
Targeting the Bush administration
On Sept. 29, two events will converge to call attention to
the role the U.S. government plays in reinforcing the economic
policies of the IMF and World Bank with a military strong arm
against peoples' resistance movements around the world and
against working and oppressed people within the U.S.
The Latin America Solidarity Conference will hold a
"National Demonstration Against U.S. Military and Economic
Intervention in Latin America." Primary issues that will be
taken up by the demonstration are opposition to Plan Colombia
and the phony "war on drugs," as well as condemnation of the
U.S. Navy bombing on Vieques.
A call to "surround the White House," issued by the
International Action Center and endorsed by hundreds of groups
and individuals, will target the reactionary policies of the
Bush administration. As an IAC statement points out, Bush is
"moving at record speed to give trillions more to the rich,
undermine the labor movement, rollback civil rights, women's,
lesbian, gay, bi, trans and disabled rights, gut environmental
protections, and escalate militarism and the threat of new
wars."
Endorsers of the IAC action represent all the fronts being
attacked by the Bush offensive and include labor and civil
rights leaders, women's organizations, lesbian/gay/bi/trans
groups, communities of color organizations, environmental
groups, anti-war activists, and supporters of political
prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.
Targeting the IMF and World Bank
Two organizations--the 50 Years Is Enough/Network for Global
Economic Justice, a Washington-based NGO, and the Mobilization
for Global Justice, a group that hosted April 2000 anti-IMF
protests in Washington--are partnering a sizeable coalition of
environmental, labor, women's and international solidarity
groups to co-sponsor a major demonstration on Sept. 30.
From its Web site, the 50 Years is Enough Network demands
"the immediate suspension of the policies and practices of the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group that have
caused widespread poverty, inequality and suffering among the
world's peoples and damage to the world's environment."
Other demands that the group plans to voice during the fall
protests include unconditional cancellation of debts, a
cessation of structural adjustment programs and reparations for
the harms caused by these programs.
Protest organizers plan to hold a day of actions to address
the effects that globalization has on the people who live in
Washington D.C. These include the crises caused by the
effective closing of D.C. General Hospital and urban planning
trends that benefit only a handful of real estate developers
while ignoring the thousands who desperately await affordable
housing.
In an April statement announcing an Oct. 2-4 Anti-Capitalist
Convergence (ACC) of direct action against the IMF and World
Bank meetings, the ACC pronounced that "these institutions
exemplify how capitalism promotes poverty, racism, sexism,
environmental destruction and social injustice in the name of
so-called development.
"Both the IMF and the World Bank are merely the outward
faces of a brutal elite bent on imposing its destructive
economic regime on the entire world. We will not be content
with reforming or even abolishing the IMF/World Bank. ... For
only from the ashes of these banks and of capitalism itself can
arise a new world of liberation, community and harmony."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page