Members of the Tufts Coalition for Social Justice and Non-Violence joined approximately 3,000 people in Washington, DC this weekend to protest the annual International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings.
The Coalition for Social Justice and Non-Violence has frequently sponsored students to attend large-scale anti-globalization protests. The Coalition sent a group to the April 2000 and 2001 IMF meetings, as well as the September 2001 protest, even though the meetings were not held because of the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, they rallied against US retaliation in Afghanistan.
Founded in 1945, the IMF currently has 184 member countries. According to the IMF website, the organization's primary goals are to promote international monetary cooperation and stability, foster economic growth, and provide temporary assistance to struggling countries. In order to ensure economic progress and loan repayment, the IMF and its crediting organization, The World Bank, compile Structural Adjustment Reports and install economists in aid-receiving nations.
Organizations such as the Mobilization for Global Justice, which organized this weekend's protest, charge that the IMF subordinates third world modernization in favor of debt collection. They claim that by forcing nations to adopt economic policies that favor cash-crop farming and mining, money is diverted away from social services and economic standards.
The Mobilization for Global Justice voices four primary demands: opening all IMF and World Bank meetings to the public, canceling poor countries' debt, ending policies that hinder people's access to basic resources, and stopping support for "socially and environmentally destructive projects."
The roles of the IMF and World Bank have long been debated at Tufts. In April 2001, over 50 students gathered for a panel discussion entitled "The Current Debate About the IMF."
This weekend's meetings were expected to address possible reform of the IMF and World Bank. Though the meetings are private, the Sept. 28 edition of The Economist predicted that the IMF's second-in-command, Anne Krueger, would present a plan to enable governments to declare national bankruptcy.
Krueger's plan, the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM), is designed for use only in emergency scenarios. At this weekend's meeting, The Economist predicted, IMF leaders would ask the Fund to draw up a detailed proposal over the next six months outlining how to implement the SDRM.
The United States, the IMF's largest shareholder, has made it clear that it opposes the reform plan. "The Bush team is quite clear that they want to build a system where emerging markets restructure their debt smoothly and more frequently," The Economist said. "Bail-outs are to be minimized."
During the Friday morning rush hour in Washington, protestors hoping for more extensive reforms staged so-called minor "direct action activities" whereby they tried to disrupt the IMF meeting. The streets were filled with bicycle riders attempting to block traffic. As the day progressed, police began preemptively arresting protestors because they had not obtained demonstration permits.
The DC bureau of the Independent Media Company (IMC) reported that "protesters were handcuffed with plastic strips and loaded onto buses... bound for a temporary detention center at the Police Academy in extreme southern DC." Many protestors spent over 12 hours en route to the detention center, and some were detained for up to 26 hours in Police Academy gymnasiums.
In all, 649 protesters were arrested on Friday. On Saturday, however, DC police permitted the protests and there were only four reported arrests.
About 1,700 officers from other jurisdictions around the country, including Illinois and Virginia, assisted 1,500 DC police officers. Despite the smaller number of arrests, the police presence was not markedly reduced on Saturday.
Over 2,000 activists gathered midday Saturday for a rally at the base of the Washington Monument. The rally featured speakers and performers, including Oscar Olivera of the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life in Bolivia, musician Michelle Shocked, and consumer advocate and Green Party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader.
The activists were joined by over 400 people marching for international AIDS prevention as they proceeded up 15th Street to Farragut Square. As the march came to an end, small groups began to splinter off to protest more actively.
One group of about 25 protestors strung yarn and caution tape across the intersection of 20th Street and Pennsylvania Ave. and taped themselves together in the street to bar IMF delegates from leaving. The activists quickly dispersed without incident when police, equipped with riot gear and tear gas, appeared behind the barricade.
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