[stop-imf] Milwaukee moves toward boycott of World Bank Bonds

[Robert Weissman]

WORLD BANK BONDS BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN / WISCONSIN FAIR TRADE CAMPAIGN For
Immediate Release  -- February 27, 2002

CONTACT: In Milwaukee -- Frances Bartelt 414-559-9583/ Steve Watrous
414-933-3033
               In Washington, DC -- Neil Watkins 202-393-6665 


Community Leaders Call on City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin State Investment
Board Not to Buy World Bank Bonds

Milwaukee Finance Committee Votes 5-0 to Endorse Boycott of World Bank
Bonds; 
Full Council Vote Next Week


MILWAUKEE --  After hearing testimony from community leaders and experts
on the  impacts of World Bank policies and projects, the Finance
Committee of the Milwaukee Common Council voted 5-0 this morning to
support a resolution which would prohibit the city of Milwaukee from
purchasing World Bank bonds in the future.  The resolution also calls on
the Wisconsin State Investment Board, which currently holds $35 million
in World Bank bonds, not to buy such bonds in the future.

 "The World Bank's policies foster a global race to the bottom, driving
down wages, environmental conditions and democratic institutions from
Argentina to Zimbabwe," said Alderman Don Richards, chief sponsor of the
resolution. "There is a direct link between the loss of
family-supporting jobs and our tax base in Milwaukee and the World
Bank's promotion of investor-rights globalization. While the Bank claims
to be offering a helping hand to poor nations, it actually forces Third
World nations to follow self- destructive economic policies. This is a
disaster for poor nations being kept poor by the Bank's onerous
conditions for financial assistance, and also a disaster for cities like
Milwaukee having its industrial base plundered.

"In the past, cities and other governmental units took action against
South African apartheid, Americans were able to play a crucial role in
forcing the abandonment of apartheid. With this resolution, we aim to
take the same kind of substantive--not merely symbolicaction against an
institution, the World Bank, that is actively harming communities like
Milwaukee as well as Third World nations," said Richards.

Local community leaders and national experts representing labor, human
rights, and religious constituencies testified before the committee and
spoke at a press conference today where they urged City Council to pass
the resolution.  Among those who testified at the hearing today or spoke
to the press were the resolution's chief sponsor, Milwaukee Alderman Don
Richards; John Goldstein, President of the Milwaukee County Labor
Council; Don Burmester, a worker laid off from the Milwaukee Master Lock
factory; Cathy Rose of the Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign; Bill Lange of
Faith Community for Worker Justice; and Mark Weisbrot, co-Director of
Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

"This is an important victory for working people in Milwaukee," said
John Goldstein, President of the Milwaukee County Labor Council.  "We
have seen tens of thousands of jobs leave our community as a result of
World Bank policies of corporate globalization. It's very encouraging to
have the city council support those working families as we shed light on
the damaging policies of the World Bank."

The Milwaukee effort is part of a global World Bank Bonds Boycott
campaign. The campaign is organizing municipalities and institutional
investors to stop buying World Bank bonds as a means of putting
political and financial pressure on the World Bank for fundamental
change. Already, 5 U.S. cities, 10 investment firms, and dozens of
unions and churches have adopted the boycott of World Bank bonds. The
campaign is modeled upon the anti-Apartheid divestment movement of the
1980s, and is based on the fact that the World Bank raises a majority of
its funds by issuing bonds to institutional investors.

 "World Bank policies seek to commodify that which sustains our life
water," said Cathy Rose, a member of the Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign,
the group leading the effort for the boycott in Milwaukee.  "Even though
the World Bank doesn't operate in the U.S., World Bank programs and
policies which promote corporate globalization have directly affected us
through the de-industrialization of Milwaukee and the Heartland of the
U.S."

The World Bank Bonds Boycott calls on the World Bank Group to cancel
100% of debts owed to it by impoverished countries, stop destructive
'structural adjustment' and similar policies, and end all lending for
oil, gas, mining, and dam projects. The World Bank Bonds Boycott
resolution will be considered by the full city council in Milwaukee on
Tuesday, March 5.




* Please note NEW address and phone number *

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Neil Watkins
World Bank Bonds Boycott
Center for Economic Justice
733 15th St., NW, Suite 928
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: (202) 393-6665
Fax: (202) 393-1358
Web: www.worldbankboycott.org <http://www.worldbankboycott.org/> 

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