Massive Rally and Non-Violent Protest at the IMF & World Bank in Washington

DC Sun-Mon April 16-17, 2000

A powerful U.S. movement for economic and human rights and fair trade had its coming-out party at the WTO meetings in Seattle. A range of forces who value human and ecological dignity over corporate profits and trickle-down economics came together there. We challenged one of the most insidious tools of unaccountable profit-driven rule, the World Trade Organization, and we scored an important series of victories against some daunting odds.

In April, the struggle continues in Washington DC - the very heart of political and institutional control over the global economy where the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are located. They are the chief instruments used by political and corporate elites to create today's unjust, destructive global economic order. The World Bank and the IMF have been quietly writing the rules that keep the world safe for multinational corporations while economically depriving billions around the world.

The finance ministers and international bureaucrats who shape the world economy to make the rich richer and the poor poorer need to know that Seattle was not just a bump on their road to global domination. What we asserted at the WTO must be repeated to the rulers of the global economy. We must make clear, again, that the peoples' movements of the world, will not stand idly by while those holding power continue to impoverish and oppress the majority of the world's peoples and ravage the earth's environment and resources while enriching themselves and corporations.

Activists in the United States and throughout the world must insist - firmly and consistently, until the system is changed - that decisions about the fate of the planet and its peoples must not be made behind closed doors.

The IMF and World Bank are in many ways the "parents" of the WTO; they operate together to preserve corporate power and constrain the rights and opportunities of the majority of the world's people. Because of that, many of the groups that helped organize the victories in Seattle are already preparing for days of protest, education, training, and direct action during the week of April 9-16 in Washington.

The week begins on Saturday, April 8th at the Convergence site in Washington. On the 9th there is a Jubilee 2000/USA mobilization for cancellation of the debts of African, Latin American, Asia-Pacific, and Caribbean countries, and continuing with teach-ins and trainings on the global economy. It will culminate with a huge non-violent protest at the World Bank and IMF on Sunday April 16th and Monday April 17th.

Plan for action in New Zealand as well!

For more information the home page of the Mobilization for Global Justice protest against the World Bank:www.a16.org

Return to main page on the WTO and globalisation.

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