From: Jason Mark (jason@globalexchange.org)
Date: Tue Oct 15 2002 - 21:32:29 EDT
Dear Friends:
In this alert you will find:
1) A brief report from the IMF/World Bank protests in Washington.
2) An exciting update from the World Bank Bonds Boycott.
3) Los Angeles Times article about the Global Justice Movement
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1) Report from Washington. ... By Jason Mark
From September 27 to September 30, thousands of people converged on
Washington, DC for protests against the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank. I was in Washington for the marches, and I am happy to report
that the movement for global justice and environmental sustainability is as
active as ever.
On Saturday, Sept 29, the main day of marches, as many as 10,000 people
marched from the Washington Monument, past the Department of the Treasury
(the real puppet master controlling the strings at the IMF and WB), to a
park in downtown. At the pre-march rally, speakers from the Global South
shared their righteous anger about the policies of the institutions. Ralph
Nader offered a particularly thoughtful speech, telling the audience that
"democracy is an instrument of justice," and that's why we must democratize
the global economy.
The crowd surpassed organizers' expectations. The day before the main march,
police arrested hundreds of people who were trying to "shut down"
Washington. Hundreds of the arrests were preemptive, and took in people who
were doing nothing more than standing in a park. Organizers feared the
police tactics would perhaps scare some people from turning out. But even in
the face of official intimidation, thousands of people exercised their
democratic right to assemble to make their voices heard.
But this movement is about more than just assembling certain numbers on a
certain day. As the Los Angeles Times reports in a story copied below:
" ... There's more to a movement than street theater and crowd counts.
Authorities on development issues, including some of globalization's
stalwart defenders, say the movement in this country has broadened, matured
and become more influential in the 33 months since Seattle.
...
Development experts credit activist pressure at least in part for a range of
developments, including a decision by the World Bank to give poor countries
a bigger voice in developing poverty-reduction plans and agreement by the
World Trade Organization to give top priority to the needs of poor countries
in the round of worldwide trade talks launched last year."
A great example of the important work taking place at the grassroots, far
away from the attention of the national media, is the World Bank Bonds
Boycott Campaign. Just a week after the protests in Washington, the
Teamsters Union voted to join the boycott. The Boycott represents one of the
best efforts to make the World Bank accountable to global civil society. As
the Boycott's influence grows, the Bank will have a more difficult time
resisting change.
The protests in Washington and around the world have made it impossible for
the IMF and World Bank to ignore public opinion. Continued resistance--in
the streets and through campaigns like the Boycott--will some day make the
institutions really begin to listen to the clamor outside their walls. Soon
they will either have to fundamentally change, or get out of the way.
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2)
TEAMSTERS JOIN WORLD BANK BONDS BOYCOTT,
BECOME 7TH INTERNATIONAL UNION TO ADOPT CAMPAIGN
More information -- www.worldbankboycott.org; (202) 393-6665
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 8 -- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters signed
onto the World Bank Bond Boycott on October 3, at a meeting of its
International Executive Board.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with 1.4 million members, is one
of the largest labor unions in the world. Moreover, unlike most unions, they
control substantial pension funds. A quick search of SEC filings reveals
that some Teamster pension funds hold World Bank bonds. The resolution will
be sent to all 521 Teamster locals and joint councils so they can bring it
to the attention of the managers of their health and welfare trust funds.
Thanks are due to Rosalyn Fay of the Bay Area World Bank Bonds Boycott,
Teamsters Local 85, and others who have been working to win this endorsement
over the past year and a half.
The Teamsters join six other international unions that have adopted the
boycott, including the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU),
the Communication Workers of America, and the United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers (UE).
In addition to these international unions, the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, 7
central labor councils, and several UAW, AFSCME and Steelworker locals have
adopted the boycott.
The World Bank Bonds Boycott campaign is a growing global initiative that
puts pressure on the World Bank to make fundamental changes. Since its
launch by civil society groups from more than 30 global South countries and
the U.S. in April 2000, the campaign has organized more than 65
institutional investors to commit not to buy World Bank bonds, including
city councils in Cambridge, Milwaukee, Boulder, San Francisco, Oakland,
Berkeley, Takoma Park, Md., and dozens of religious institutions and
foundations. Ten of the largest socially responsible investment funds in the
US, controlling more than $16 billion in assets, have also adopted the
boycott.
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3)
Los Angeles Times
September 24, 2002 Tuesday Home Edition
SECTION: Main News Main News; Part 1; Page 16; National Desk
LENGTH: 1327 words
HEADLINE: The Nation;
;
Globalization Activists Go to Charm School;
Advocacy: Experts say the movement in U.S. has matured, gained support and
had an effect since '99 Seattle WTO protests.
BYLINE: WARREN VIETH, TIMES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
In a church basement a couple of miles from the citadels of international
finance, opponents of globalization are trying to revive the spirit of
Seattle.
An anti-globalization garage band unleashes a sonic barrage titled "Third
World Scene." The Anti-Authoritarian Babysitters Club offers to keep an eye
on infants of the revolution. Forty or so protest planners stand shoulder to
shoulder in a circle and chant "Si, se puede" over and over.
Translation: Yes, it can be done. Even after Sept. 11. Nearly three years
after 50,000 protesters virtually shut down a meeting of global trade
officials in Seattle, activists would be pleased to mobilize a mere 10,000
when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hold their fall
meetings in Washington this weekend. In the aftermath of last year's
terrorist attacks, which made any form of civil disobedience seem
unpatriotic, even that goal may be optimistic.
But there's more to a movement than street theater and crowd counts.
Authorities on development issues, including some of globalization's
stalwart defenders, say the movement in this country has broadened, matured
and become more influential in the 33 months since Seattle.
"The movement is getting much more sophisticated, even the activists in the
streets," said Nancy Birdsall, a former World Bank official who heads the
Center for Global Development in Washington. "It's gone from
anti-globalization to alternative globalization to managing globalization."
Development experts credit activist pressure at least in part for a range of
developments, including a decision by the World Bank to give poor countries
a bigger voice in developing poverty-reduction plans and agreement by the
World Trade Organization to give top priority to the needs of poor countries
in the round of worldwide trade talks launched last year.
Globalization critics denounce some of those initiatives as inadequate. But
if nothing else, they represent an acknowledgment that wealthy nations and
their financial institutions cannot afford to appear indifferent to global
injustice.
"They won the verbal and policy battle," said Gary Hufbauer, a
pro-globalization economist at the Institute for International Economics in
Washington. "They did shift policy. Are they happy that they shifted it
enough? No, they're not ever going to be totally happy, because they're
always pushing."
Experts see evidence of the movement's growing influence in other arenas.
Several high-profile economists, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph
Stiglitz, have endorsed some of the specific criticisms and objectives of
the movement. Their critique was reinforced by growing evidence of the
failure of "Washington consensus" formulas to foster growth in Africa, Asia
and Latin America.
The issue of Third World debt relief resonated with a much wider audience
when Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and Irish rock star Bono jointly
toured some of sub-Saharan Africa's poorest countries.
Many development experts point to Jubilee 2000, the Third World debt-relief
group whose work has been championed by Bono, as the non-government
organization with perhaps the most influence over public policymaking.
"Jubilee 2000 had a tremendous impact in mobilizing focus and political
support for the decisions that were eventually made," said Mats Karlsson,
the World Bank's vice president for external affairs. The result, he said,
"is a very radical debt relief program that is now being implemented country
by country."
Other groups have had an effect too. Oxfam, the London-based relief
organization, made waves with a report stating that more trade
liberalization, if managed properly, is the best prescription for reducing
world poverty. The International Labor Organization has convened a
high-profile working group to assess the social implications of
globalization.
"All of the major organizations have grown enormously more powerful and
effective. The only thing that's shrunk is the street protests," said Mark
Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research
in Washington. "The movement hasn't lost momentum at all. It just shifted to
a different set of tactics."
For every organization involved in what some call the "movement of
movements," there have also been smaller but symbolically important
victories.
Jubilee USA's crusade has been joined by a remarkably wide range of
organizations, from conservative evangelical churches to the San Francisco
49ers football team.
For the World Bank Bond Boycott, which hopes to generate the kind of
financial pressure that helped end apartheid, a big turning point was the
Milwaukee City Council's 13-1 vote this spring to join the campaign. "We've
seen a huge shift," said boycott coordinator Neil Watkins. "When we started
in 2000, there's no way we could have even talked to the city of Milwaukee."
Leaders say the movement's evolving profile reflects a deliberate decision
to tone down the increasingly provocative street mobilizations staged
outside meetings of the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and other
global institutions.
Although authorities said the vast majority of participants were peaceful,
small groups of Black Bloc anarchists and other extremists were giving the
protests a violent edge. In Seattle, their antics contributed to $2 million
in property damage and 500 arrests.
Then came Sept. 11. Public revulsion for terrorism and heightened concern
about security created even more ambivalence within the movement about the
merits of street mobilizations.
Anti-globalization groups had been planning a Seattle-size protest at the
fall 2001 meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, but the sessions
were canceled shortly after Sept. 11. When the institutions held their
spring meetings here in April, only 1,000 or so protesters rallied outside
their headquarters.
"After 9/11, the U.S. movement obviously reevaluated its tactics and its
tone," said Lori Wallach, who has directed Public Citizen's Global Trade
Watch operation since 1990. "But even before 9/11, there was a strategy
judgment that we needed to diversify the ways in which we organized and
mobilized."
Wallach said the movement's current level of energy and engagement far
exceeds what prevailed during the struggle over ratification of the North
American Free Trade Agreement.
"At the time, you could have put 15 people on a bus--activists, labor
leaders, members of Congress--and if that bus went over a cliff, it would
have been the end of the NAFTA campaign," she said.
Today, a whole fleet of plummeting buses wouldn't slow the movement much.
Although the ranks of street protesters have thinned, they may be more
diverse. Jubilee USA, which declined to participate in past mobilizations
because of concerns about potential violence, will be part of the action
this weekend.
National coordinator Marie Clarke said Jubilee decided to join the crowd
because organizers made a stronger commitment to nonviolence, and because
the AIDS epidemic and endemic poverty were rapidly worsening in the Third
World.
"As fast as we've been working and as successful as we've been so far, I
feel like we're really running out of time," Clarke said. "When the
long-term advocacy people working in the system finally have to go to the
streets, it tells you there's an urgency there."
David Levy, one of the protest coordinators stationed in the basement bunker
of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, scoffs at suggestions that the movement
has lost its edge.
"In social movements, there's kind of a good-cop, bad-cop phenomenon," said
Levy, who works with the umbrella group Mobilization for Global Justice. "We
go out in the streets and confront the evils of these institutions with very
hard rhetoric. There are others who say, 'Negotiate with us,' and get a seat
at the table.
"They wouldn't get that seat without the pressure from the street."
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