[stop-imf] Activists Target IMF, World Bank, and Inter-American DevelopmentBank

[Robert Weissman]

PRESS
ADVISORY						April  10, 2003


Contact: 	 Soren Ambrose, 50 Years Is Enough Network: 202-463-2265;

				    mobile    202-285-5836

 	 Brendan O'Neill, ACERCA: 802-598-8373



50 Years is Enough:				ACERCA

U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice		Action for Community &
Ecology in the Regions of

					Central America: a project of Action for Social &

					Ecological Justice (ASEJ)


<center><bold>Activists Target IMF, World Bank, and Inter-American
Development Bank

Sunday Protests Demonstrate Continuing Urgency of Global Justice
Movement

</bold></center><bold>

</bold>As the world continues to be convulsed by U.S. military action
in Iraq, activists in Washington, DC are focusing attention on the
economic foundations of poverty, environmental devastation, and
distrust beween countries.  "For the past 25 years, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank have used countries' debts to impose
damaging  austerity programs emphasizing trade over human rights," says
Njoki Njoroge Njehu, Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, a
coalition of over 200 U.S. groups dedicated to the fundamental
transformation of the institutions.


Latin America was the first region to be squarely targeted by the
institutions' macroeconomic programs, with the debt crisis of the early
1980s introducing full-scale "structural adjustment programs" in
Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.  Today, after following IMF/World Bank
"advice," Argentina sees itself expressing a new, "post-modern" brand
of politics, without leaders, and at this time perhaps giving up on
traditional capitalism and business.


The Latin America Solidarity Coalition has organized a 3-day series of
seminars and events to highlight the forgotten cases of Latin America,
where economic oppression and deprivation of civil rights have gone
hand-in-hand with the enriching of narrow, elite classes.


On Sunday, the action will grow more pointed, as a rally at Malcolm X /
Meridian Hill Park (16th & Euclid, N.W.) will be followed by a march to
several downtown landmarks.  The march will target the Inter-American
Development Bank, and end outside the IMF/World Bank spring meetings.
The IDB has been increasingly targeted for its own World Bank-style
excesses.  Austerity conditionalities appear in IDB agreements, and the
IDB is currently funding some of the most controversial and potentially
devastating infrastructure projects underway in the region.  "We want
to make sure the IDB's role is fully exposed," says Brendan O'Neill of
ACERCA. "The IDB hides in the shadows while we critique the World Bank.
 It's time to point out that the coersion goes very deep."


Soledad Qunitanilla, a member of CESTA/Friends of the Earth El
Salvador,  will be featured at the rallies and marches, discussing how
the imperatives of free trade leave humans and the environment depleted
and vulnerable.  She is part of a campaign to halt construction of
three dams in El Salvador that would benefit corporations but provide
nothing for most Salvadorans.


"People all over the world will not be truly free until they are able
to influence the economic policies underwhich they live. The domination
of the G7 countries through the IMF, World Bank, and regional anks lik


*Friday April 11: Opening of Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC)
conference.

The IMF and World Bank have been devastating economies in the region
for over 20 years; in the past four years resistance to neo-liberal
policies has been building in many of the region's countries. Opening
plenary moderated by Soren Ambrose of 50 Years Is Enough Network.
7:30 pm: St. Aloysius Church, 19 I St., N.W. (at North Capitol St., 3
blocks north of Union Station)


*Saturday, April 12: LASC conference continues 9:30am - 12:45pm & 5:30
pm - 9:00 pm:  St. Aloysius Church, 19 I  St., N.W. (at North Capitol
St.; 3 blocks north of Union Station).  For program,  see
http://www.lasolidarity.org/events/A2003/workshops.htm.  The 50 Years
Is Enough Network is sponsoring a workshop at 11:15 am, on the IMF,
featuring Sarath Fernando (MONLAR, Sri Lanka); Monica Martins (Network
for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil), Soledad Quintanilla
(CESTA, El Salvador), Nicola Bullard, Focus on the Global South, Njoki
Njoroge Njehu, 50 Years Is Enough Network, and others.


*Sunday, April 13: Global Justice Rally, co-sponsored by Latin America
Solidarity Coalition and the Mobilization for Global Justice.  Followed
by a march to IMF/World Bank.  All times approximate.

11 am: Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park - 16th & Euclid Street, NW

1 pm: March steps off, Tour of Shame, with several stops;
www.50years.org

3 pm:  March reaches Inter-American Development Bank (13th & New York
Ave., N.W.), a regional development bank that operates on the same
principles as the World Bank.  The IBD has a larger exposure than the
World Bank in many Latin American countries.

4 pm: March reaches the IMF headquarters, 700 19th Street, N.W., site
of the institutions' spring meetings, which should be ending at about
that time.

Closing rally until about 5 pm.