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THE "BATTLE IN SEATTLE" MOVES TO WASHINGTON
(This article is from the April 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
HUNDREDS OF CANADIANS are packing their bags for the next confrontation with the institutions of global capitalism. This time the target is the semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, taking place April 16-17 in Washington, DC.
Just as the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle last fall drew massive protests, the IMF-World Bank meeting will meet with opposition from a wide range of popular movements. Trade unionists, environmentalists, women's groups and many other forces will be in Washington to resist the corporate attacks on working people and the environment across the planet.
"If the WTO is the corporate rule maker in the global economy, then the IMF and the World Bank are the institutions that push third world nations into that system," explains Mike Prokosch, from the economic justice group, United for a Fair Economy.
The UFE and dozens of other organizations are mobilizing for a week of training and education culminating in two days of nonviolent direct action intended to raise awareness about the IMF and World Bank and to disrupt their meetings (for details, see www.a16.org). From April 9 to 15, thousands of Americans and people from other countries will gather in Washington for a week of education, protest and direct action training leading up to the April 16-17 meetings.
"There will definitely be an action to shut down the IMF and World Bank meetings," Prokosch says. "The objective is to really let the nation know that thousands of people in this country think these institutions need to be shut down."
The Council of Canadians is one group mobilizing among activists in this country to take part in the Washington actions. At PV press time, the CoC plans to have two buses leaving from Toronto for the protests; for more information, call the Council's Ottawa office at 613-233-2773.
Details of the protests have not been finalized, partly because of the police attitude toward the actions. According to The Washington Times, "The Metropolitan Police Department is re-equipping and training 1,400 officers for crowd control, stocking up on less-than-lethal weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets, and setting up locations to send suspects if officers conduct mass arrests."
The Times quoted Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer as saying, "We will not put up with civil disobedience that leads to breaking windows, burning cars or pelting people with rocks. We won't be caught sleeping."
Gainer was clearly referring to the huge protests against the WTO in Seattle, where no cars were burned and virtually all the violence was committed by police. The authorities want to frighten protesters into staying away from Washington, but organizers predict that thousands will take part despite this intimidation.
Emerging from the post-World War II "Bretton Woods" global economic system, the IMF and World Bank were designed to manage the global capitalist economy by fostering monetary and financial stability, reconstructing countries devastated by war, and promoting free trade. In reality, their policies have increased socio-economic inequality, destroyed local environments, and pushed third world nations further into debt.
The IMF's primary activity is providing loans to countries that face financial difficulties. But such assistance comes with a heavy price. Countries that accept IMF loans or grants must agree to "Structural Adjustment Programs" to make them more "stable" and "competitive." SAPs involve drastic cuts to social services, privatization of industries and public assets, reduced tariffs, and other policies that benefit local elites, foreign investors and transnational corporations, at the expense of working people and national sovereignty.
"Ruling elites [in developing nations] have their interests with elites in the North, not with ordinary people," says Kenyan-born activist Njoki Njehu. "The choice [to accept IMF loans and structural adjustment programs] is being made by bureaucrats and people in government. No ordinary person in the Third World would choose declines in health and education spending and increases in infant mortality."
The IMF also mandates that the countries it loans money to increase exports, in order pay back their IMF loans. According to the American Lands Alliance (ALA), a Washington-DC based environmental group, the IMF-sponsored drive toward export-oriented growth has become a lead factor in the destruction of developing nations' ecosystems. In Indonesia, the ALA states, "The government is encouraging clear-cutting and burning of millions of acres of ancient forests for conversion into cash crops such as oil palm, intended for export rather than domestic use. The result is rampant forest destruction with no end in sight."
World Bank policies, like those of the IMF, often negatively impact Third World nations as well, Njehu says, by promoting a "one-size-fits-all model of development that is often destructive to people and the environment." Despite a stated commitment to help the poor and promote responsible development, the Bank funds projects such as dams and roads in a manner which often encourages corruption, drives local populations off their land, devastates the local environment and increases poverty.
Njehu, who heads the "50 Years Is Enough Network" (www.50years.org), a coalition of 205 organizations dedicated to the transformation of the IMF and the World Bank, believes "development should be measured by social and environmental indicators, rather than by a country's Gross National Product or by how many roads and international airports it has."
The movement against the IMF and the World Bank received a boost from a March 7 US Congressional report, which criticized the institutions for being secretive, bullying and ineffective.
"At the entrance to the World Bank's headquarters in Washington, a large sign reads: `Our dream is a world without poverty.' The Commission shares that objective as a long-term goal. Unfortunately, neither the World Bank nor the regional development banks are pursuing the set of activities that could best help the world move rapidly toward that objective or even the lesser, but more fully achievable, goal of raising living standards and the quality of life, particularly for people in the poorest nations of the world," the report states.
While organizers like Prokosch are working hard to get as many people as possible to Washington, they doubt the protests will be as large as those that rocked Seattle.
"The difference is that the WTO clearly was holding a gun to the head of a number of different interests - environmentalists, people who care about health and education," Prokosch explains. "Even though the IMF and the World Bank probably hurt labour more than the WTO because they foster a global race to the bottom for workers everywhere, there was more of an acute crisis surrounding the Seattle meetings."
On the other hand, Washington is closer than Seattle for millions of Americans, and dozens of activist groups are based in the city, making mass mobilization easier.
Even if the April 16-17 protests are smaller than those in Seattle, the Washington actions will be seen and heard around the world, yet another sign of the growing international resistance to capitalist globalization.
(This report was prepared with files from the Independent Media Institute, including an AlterNet report by Roni Krouzman.)
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