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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Seattle yesterday, Washington today
By Lamis Andoni"Free trade for us and not for you ... We want global domination," chanted a group of activists dressed up as World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) executives in suits, dark glasses and cell phones. The message resonated with thousands of activists swarming Washington to protest world inequity and damage to the environment caused by policies imposed by the two powerhouse world creditors.
For the protesters, as for many in developing countries, the IMF and the WB have become associated with tightening the grip of the so-called North -- particularly the stranglehold United States maintains on the global market. The two monetary forces are regarded by a growing number of critics as widening the gap between rich and poor worldwide, and, in many cases, are blamed for the repression resorted to by governments trying to crush a popular backlash.
WB and IMF officials, many of whom are jarred by being portrayed as the enemy of the poor and the environment, have reacted with a flurry of media campaigns painting the opposite image.
"What I find demoralising is that there is no organisation on earth that is doing more for the poor than we do," WB President James Wolfensohn was quoted by The New York Times as complaining. In a refrain that he has repeated on a slew of news television and radio programmes, Wolfensohn expressed "astonishment" at how protesters envisage the WB and IMF: "Globalisation is not something that the World Bank can turn back. It's not something the IMF can stop. We can [only] help people and countries adjust to close the gaps."
To many, such "bewildered" statements are merely regarded as disingenuous -- but also part of an attempt to redefine the WB and IMF roles as the world economic "Red Cross" (to use the analogy preferred by Wolfensohn). It is unlikely such a counter-offensive will appease protesters or critics of the two organisations. Most of the protesting groups are fighting against the injustice that results from the domination of the US and other Western governments in the world market. The IMF and the WB, protesters argue, are instrumental in reinforcing this domination.
A STATE OF SIEGE: A police force of 35,000 was deployed to quell the anti-globalisation protest in Washington this week. Hundreds were arrested
This view is coming through more clearly than during last December's protests, which disrupted the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and stunned the world, proving a catalyst for a growing movement worldwide.
This time around, Washington had prepared itself to contain the impact of such protests. Activists were kept within a safe distance so as not to impede the movement of officials and participants of the meetings. A police force of more than 35,000 was deployed and armed with batons and pepper spray. On the eve of the summit alone, at least 600 protesters were rounded up and the police used its arsenal to clamp down on groups of protesters.
But for protesters, their point was made even before the Washington meeting had started. If anything, the attention given the protests has brought issues about consequences of IMF and WB policies into the spotlight. Mainstream media in the US has been forced to focus on the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the huge debts incurred by poor nations. As one activist put it, "Talk about the role of the IMF and the WB has started."
What is interesting is that protesters and their demands have received more attention -- perhaps due to their success in shutting down the Seattle meeting last year -- than the G77 summit that took place in Havana a week earlier (See adjacent story). The Havana summit, which brought together leaders of the world's developing nations, received little attention in the press, while the media has been flooded with American officials and IMF and WB representatives arguing how their policies aim at helping poor nations -- a clear indication of the current imbalance of power between the North and the South.
One of the foremost demands put forward by many groups is an unequivocal demand for writing off the debt of developing countries. Leaflets distributed by protesters and posted on several websites not only detail the debts of the developing countries and the level of poverty and damage to the environment caused by reportedly WB-financed projects, but also include detailed critiques of the two organisations' policies.
WB and IMF officials argue that they have made important changes in terms of transparency with regard to IMF work and WB-funded projects to promote socio-economic development. They also argue that they have recruited many African and Asian talents for key positions. Both the IMF and the WB have even attracted some formerly "socialist-oriented" economists who, after the collapse of communism, were seeking to make a difference from within. But while the fundamental problems of poverty and injustice have been widening and deepening, broader policies promoting open market economies that involve painful austerity measures have not been altered.
A very recent report by the World Bank claims that the global financial crisis of 1997-98 dealt a setback to efforts to relieve poverty. Some 1.2 billion people were forced to get by on less than $1 a day in 1998, the report said, and 57 per cent of the world's population were existing on just 6 per cent of world's income.
According to Jubilee 2000, the organisers of the Washington protests, 100 days after the start of the new millennium, 3.5 million children in developing countries have died as a consequence of the debt crisis. But calls for relief of the $70 billion debt held by the world's poorest countries is accompanied by warnings that without reliable accountability systems, the corrupt ruling elite in these nations would be the main beneficiaries of a write-off. The solutions might be complex, but protests in Seattle, and now in Washington, have unleashed a call for justice that can no longer be ignored.
"We believe consciousness is rising, including in the North, about the inequality and insecurity globalisation has brought ... [and] about the plight of the poor countries," South African President Thabo Mbeki, said at the Havana summit. His words perhaps best summarise the ongoing changes in public sentiment on the issues facing the Third World. Mbeki described the growing protest movement, which started in the North, as evidence of "a changing atmosphere which a more coherent Third World voice can take advantage of."
