[stop-imf] LA Times - At IMF Meeting, Optimism Inside, Outrage Outside

[Robert Weissman]

THE NATION
At IMF Meeting, Optimism Inside, Outrage Outside
World financial ministers see good signs for global economic growth,
while protesters focus on the plight of poor nations.
By Warren Vieth and Jon Marino
Times Staff Writers

April 25, 2004

WASHINGTON =97 The world's wealthy nations promised Saturday to take new
steps to promote growth in the global economy, while protesters banged
pots and pans to try to focus their attention on the poor.

Concern about the health of the world economy and the plight of
developing countries emanated from both sides of the police barricades
as global financial leaders launched two days of deliberations at the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank complex.

"We share the increased optimism regarding the global recovery," said
Sudan Finance Minister Elzubier Ahmed Elhassan, briefing reporters
inside the heavily guarded IMF headquarters. "But we need to remain
vigilant*. Poverty is a major contributor to global instability."

"Another world is possible," declared protest organizer Robert Weissman
of the Mobilization for Global Justice, which called on the IMF and
World Bank to cancel the debts of poor countries, stop telling them how
to run their finances and end support for environmentally damaging projects=
.

The group also called on the organizations to conduct open meetings.

Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 7
industrial nations emerged from a morning summit to declare that the
global recovery was gathering speed but remained subject to such risks
as high oil prices, rising interest rates, geopolitical conflicts and
signs of economic overheating in China.

"Rising energy prices can have a negative effect on world GDP growth,"
said U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, remarking on a run-up that
has pushed the spot price of oil as high as $38 a barrel in recent
weeks, compared with about $26 a year ago. The rise has contributed to
gasoline prices exceeding $2 a gallon in California and other areas.

Although the increase has been attributed in part to OPEC production
cuts, Snow said it appeared global oil production was roughly in balance
with consumption and that replenishment of depleted inventories was
driving the recent rise in price.

IMF economists issued a report on the eve of the weekend meetings
projecting the world economy would grow at a relatively robust rate of
4.6% this year. But they cautioned that every $5 increase in the price
of oil would trim the growth rate by 0.3%.

The G-7 countries =97 the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France,
Italy and Japan =97 pledged to take additional steps to promote global
economic growth and boost employment, including tax, spending and labor
market reforms and a renewed commitment to reducing trade barriers.

Later in the day, the IMF steering committee issued a similar call to
arms. "Much remains to be done," said British Chancellor of the
Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Snow said he encouraged his counterparts to follow the Bush
administration's lead by cutting taxes to stimulate growth. "The
evidence is pretty clear that lower marginal tax rates are consistent
with higher employment * higher real wages and greater prosperity," he said=
.

Although other countries have criticized the United States for
contributing to global financial instability by running up big budget
and trade deficits, Snow insisted that the administration was committed
to sound fiscal practices and was taking steps to shrink the shortfall.

The G-7 ministers and IMF overseers promised to work together to combat
terrorist financing; help fund the reconstruction of Iraq and
Afghanistan; foster economic development throughout the Middle East; and
improve strategies for reducing global poverty, such as providing more
aid in the form of grants rather than loans and working in partnership
with Third World entrepreneurs and small businesses.

They also discussed ways to enhance the flow of remittances =97 money sent
by guest workers to their home countries. Remittance payments have grown
to more than $100 billion a year and have become an increasingly
important element of global financial flows. But the cost of
transmitting money tends to be high, limiting the potential benefits to
the recipient countries, officials said.

African finance ministers said developed countries needed to do far more
than they had been willing to do in the past, such as expanding existing
debt-relief initiatives, removing barriers to Third World exports and
reducing farm subsidies that encouraged overproduction and depressed
world commodity prices.

Outside the IMF and World Bank complex, protesters marched through the
streets of the District of Columbia, condemning the twin institutions on
the 60th anniversary of their founding at the Bretton Woods conference
of 1944.

Organizers said about 3,500 demonstrators took part; police estimated
the number at 1,500 to 2,000.

Carrying signs demanding "People over profit," "Fair trade not free
trade" and "No globalization without representation," demonstrators
staged a musical march, banging mixing bowls and pots with wooden spoons
and eggbeaters to synchronize with snare and bongo drums. Upside-down
buckets were used to keep the beat; even cowbells and plastic jugs
filled with rocks became instruments.

In an unlikely cover tribute, protesters revamped the staccato lyrics of
rapper DMX, singing "Stop, drop, shut 'em down; open up shop. Oh no,
that's how the World Bank rolls!"

The National Lawyers Guild provided more than a dozen legal observers
wearing neon-green caps to aid protesters who might be arrested or who
felt their legal rights were being violated. Guild spokesman Zachary
Wolfe said the organization began providing lawyers to monitor protests
after the 1999 IMF-World Bank protests in Seattle, where many
demonstrators were tear-gassed and arrested.

Saturday's protesters came prepared as well; dozens paraded with noses
and mouths protected by handkerchiefs in case of a tear-gassing.

The IMF and World Bank protesters received support from women who said
they planned to march in today's rally for women's reproductive rights.
Some combined the themes, wearing shirts declaring their "pro-choice and
anti-capitalist" sentiments.

"It's all related," said Edith Wilson of Pittsburg, who came to
Washington with her daughter for today's women's rights protest and
joined in Saturday's march against the World Bank and IMF. "It's about
freedom. People should have economic freedom, and women should have a
right to choose."

Although Saturday's events lacked the intensity of some past IMF and
World Bank protests, police estimated more than 100 vehicles =97 mostly
SUVs and luxury cars =97 were spray-painted with anarchist symbols or
scratched with keys.

Two protesters were arrested for property destruction along the march
route; one also allegedly assaulted an officer with a slingshot and thumbta=
cks.

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