SOLIDARITY ACTIONS ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2000:

Activists in the Czech Republic have issued a call for a Global Day of Action on September 26 because that is the official opening day of the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

The institutionsâ joint meetings are usually held in Washington, DC, but every third year the fall ("annual") meetings are held outside the U.S. The 2000 fall meeting was awarded to Prague, and this is the first time the institutions will be meeting in one of the formerly-communist countries of Europe. The 2000 spring ("semi-annual") meetings of the IMF and World Bank were the occasion for a massive activist mobilization in Washington, with some 30,000 taking part in ten days of workshops, marches, rallies, and nonviolent direct actions protesting the damage done by the IMF and World Bank and their role as rulemakers for corporate globalization.

Thousands of activists, mostly Europeans, are now poised to go to Prague for a similar week of actions in September. In addition, solidarity actions are scheduled in dozens of countries around the world. In the United States over 40 organizations have endorsed the call to action, and groups in over 60 cities, many of them affiliated with Jobs with Justice and/or Witness for Peace, are already committed to organizing events on or around September 26.

The April actions in Washington, which built on the momentum of the actions in Seattle at the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, succeeded in introducing millions of people to the World Bank and IMF and the central role they play in making the rules of the global economy. Central to the institutionsâ missions is designing and forcing on the countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, economic policies that prioritize "free trade" and corporate profits and privilege over employment, the environment, democracy, and the welfare of impoverished people. The IMF has led the effort to impose "shock therapy" capitalism on Russia and the other "transition" countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the World Bank has also stepped up activity in the country -- notably with loans for controversial nuclear power producers right in the Czech Republic.

The September call to action focuses on localizing the movement for global justice. That means moving away from actions that call on activists to converge on one central location, but rather staging actions in cities and towns around the U.S. and the world, making the connections between the work of elite, unaccountable bureaucracies and the lives people lead in every community.

Whatâs happening in Prague?

Activists in Prague have joined under the banner of Initiative Against Economic Globalization - Prague 2000 (INPEG in its Czech acronym) to organize demonstrations and a "counter-summit" during the period between September 22 and 28. Like the mobilizations in Seattle and Washington, they have organized themselves into working groups and drawing on volunteers from many different organizations. Many activists from around Europe and North America have gone to Prague early to help with the organizing. The series of workshops known as the counter-summit is scheduled from Sept. 22-24. The biggest actions will take place on Tuesday, September 26, but there will also be demonstrations on other days. No plans for "shut-down" actions have been announced. See <www.inpeg.org> for more details.

In addition, the Central & Eastern Europe Bankwatch Network, a grouping of eleven regional organizations monitoring destruction caused by misguided development strategies of multilateral institutions, is holding an alternative forum from Sept. 24-27. For more details see <www.bankwatch.org>.

Organizers in Prague are depending on people in the global movement for economic justice to support them with solidarity actions around the world. This is a chance to bring the lessons and the spirit of the international mobilizations in Seattle and Washington home to your community.