[stop-imf] Milwaukee Joins World Bank Bonds Boycott

[Robert Weissman]

WORLD BANK BONDS BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN / WISCONSIN FAIR TRADE CAMPAIGN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- March 6, 2002

Contacts: Milwaukee -- Ald. Don Richards 414-286-2868, Frances Bartelt
414-559-9583; Washington -- Neil Watkins 202-393-6665


Milwaukee City Council Endorses Boycott of World Bank Bonds, Urges
Wisconsin Investment Board to Join

Council Votes 13-1 to Adopt Boycott; Joins San Francisco, Oakland in
Sending Message of Protest to World Bank


MILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee city council voted 13-1 yesterday to endorse
the World Bank Bonds Boycott, and urged the State of Wisconsin
Investment Board, which currently holds $35 million in bonds issued by
the World Bank, to do the same.

"With this resolution, we have begun to shed the light on what the World
Bank's policies of corporate globalization are doing not only around the
world but also in our community," said Milwaukee Alderman Don Richards,
the lead sponsor of the boycott resolution. "Our resolution points out
that World Bank policies undermine international labor rights and
standards, under which business in the United States is conducted. We
are asking that the World Bank be scrutinized and fundamentally reformed
before any more Wisconsin State Investment funds be entrusted to it."

The Milwaukee vote comes in the context of the World Bank Bonds Boycott
campaign, a growing global initiative which is pressuring the World Bank
to make fundamental changes. The campaign is based on the fact that the
World Bank raises a majority of its operating funds by issuing bonds on
the private financial market. Since its launch by civil society groups
from more than 30 global South countries and the U.S. in April 2000, the
campaign has gotten more than four dozen institutional investors to
commit not to buy World Bank bonds, including San Francisco, Oakland, 10
investment firms with more than $16 billion in investments, and dozens
of religious institutions and labor unions. 

Jim Carpenter, an economics instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical
College and member of the Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign, which led the
9-month campaign to garner public support for the resolution, said, "I
am not surprised that this resolution passed. Milwaukee is living proof
of failed policies of corporate globalization. Numerous students in my
economics class are displaced industrial workers who've seen their jobs
leave town because of policies promoted by the World Bank and so-called
free trade agreements."

"We are taking the effort the expose the unjust policies of the World
Bank and IMF from the streets to the suites of institutional investors
with this campaign," said Neil Watkins, the campaign's coordinator at
Center for Economic Justice in Washington. "We are thrilled that the
Milwaukee city council adopted the boycott but also note that this is
just the beginning, as we are expanding our work with local coalitions
in cities and among institutional investors across the country."

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. 
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* 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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