UNITED STATES: Thousands protest against global loan sharks

Lee Sustar, Washington

Activists from around the US were joined by representatives of social movements from around the world on April 24 for a spirited march in the US federal capital against the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

Ricardo Navarro, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International and director of the El Salvador environmental group CESTA, summed up the mood of the 3000 demonstrators outside the World Bank headquarters with a single word: "No!"

Describing the devastating impact of large dams that have displaced peasants and farmers, he said: "They can only do this if we let them. We have to say no. They talk about eradicating poverty. What they want is to eradicate poor people."

At the pre-march rally, Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, told activists that even though the World Bank and IMF have lost credibility, they are becoming even more aggressive. She pointed out that the Bank has quadrupled its budget to privatise water, saying: "We are winning— which is why they keep upping the ante."

The corporate takeover of water via privatisation, dams and free trade agreements — all abetted by the World Bank and the IMF — was taken up by activists from India to Bolivia to Central America.

Dennis Brutus, the veteran anti-apartheid and global justice activist and poet, made the connection between the struggle against the IMF/World Bank and the movement against war and occupation in Iraq, urging activists to step up efforts to oppose the US killings of civilians in the town of Fallujah.

"The people responsible should be put on trial for war crimes", he said.

A similar point was made at a meeting the day earlier by environmental activist Rudolf Amenga-Etego of Ghana, who argued for unity between the global justice and anti-war movements. "We cannot fragment the struggle", he said at a teach-in organised by 50 Years Is Enough, a US- based campaign against the World Bank and the IMF.

The April 24 march also included a stop at Halliburton, where speakers denounced the company's war profiteering.

Although the protest was smaller than the big rally of April 2000, it was dynamic, spirited — and showed the potential to renew the global justice movement.

[From Socialist Worker, weekly paper of the US International Socialist Organization. Visit <http://www.socialistworker.org>.]

From Green Left Weekly, May 5, 2004.

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From GLW issue 581