During the ten days between April 8 and April 17, the Mobilization for Global Justice will decisively demonstrate that the movement for a people-centered economy and against corporate globalization has not only arrived in the United States, but is taking very seriously its responsibility to confront the many hubs of power in this country, including the institutions most responsible for the structures of global oppression.

The massive protests during the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle in November and December proved that activists in the U.S. were ready to join the international movement against rapacious corporate capitalism. The April protests in Washington, DC show that Seattle was not just a bump on the road to corporate domination; that the U.S. and the world now face a major social movement, one that crosses borders and will not be stopped until justice is achieved.

A Movement Built on Solidarity

Targeting the long-time rule-makers and enforcers of the global economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, proves that U.S. activists will come out in force not only when U.S. laws are threatened by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Our movement is one that analyzes the entire global economic structure, and is determined to transform it.

Like the six-year-old 50 Years Is Enough Network, the Mobilization for Global Justice, the coalition organizing the upcoming protests, identifies the IMF and World Bank as those who made the WTO possible in the first place, and who have been systematically oppressing and impoverishing Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific for decades. We are standing in solidarity with the people of the Global South, declaring that the rights of people in the North are wholly bound up with the rights of people in Nigeria, Brazil, the Philippines, Fiji, Haiti, Ecuador, India, and the rest of the world. We are identifying corporate globalization as one of the main factors in the widening divisions between rich and poor ˆ and continued attacks on the rights of the impoverished ˜ in the U.S. and other Northern societies. And we are taking responsibility for the fact that the culprit institutions act at the direction of the U.S. government and the other large "shareholder" governments and on behalf of multinational corporations and banks ˜ many of them, like the institutions themselves, headquartered in the U.S.

Mobilization for Global Justice

The Mobilization for Global Justice came together rapidly in the aftermath of the Seattle protests. Since we at the 50 Years Is Enough Network have always held protests outside both the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank as well as their Fall Annual Meetings (which are in Washington two out of every three years), it was natural for us to think about how the momentum from Seattle might amplify our message this year. What was a germ of an idea in Seattle was first publicly discussed in Washington at a "report-back" on the continue WTO protests on December 15, 1999. By the time of the first meeting in Washington solely focused on making plans for April, on January 11, we already knew of people from around North America planning to descend on Washington. For the staff of 50 Years, we already felt triumphant: at the 1999 Spring Meetings we had perhaps 30 or 35 people turn out for our protest. Soon, with the enthusiastic support of the Continental Direct Action Network and hundreds of other organizations around the world, it became clear that we were talking not about hundreds coming to Washington, but about many thousands.

How the Mobilization Works

The Mobilization for Global Justice has been holding weekly general meetings attracting about 100 people each. The bulk of the work, gets done in some 15 working groups, including, for example, those on training, media, logistics, and the permitted rally and march. A great deal is also done electronically, via personal e-mails, listservs set up for the "A16" effort, and on the massive impressive event and build the momentum for fundamental social and economic change has been continually inspiring.

We are, naturally, proud of the 50 Years Is Enough Network‚s role in initiating the Mobilization and in making it happen, as well as the role of our fiscal sponsor (and the Mobilization‚s), the Alliance for Global Justice, whose member projects (including 50 Years) have, through direct mail fundraising, provided nearly half of the funding going into the week of events. More to the point, we are pleased to see the contribution that our six years of educating activists, Congress, and the general public about the impact of the IMF and World Bank has had: namely laying the foundation for the follow-up actions to Seattle, focusing on these parent institutions to the WTO. The mass mobilization of April represents a dream come true for longtime 50 Years Is Enough activists. Finally U.S. activists are acting on their knowledge about the IMF and World Bank in a very big way, filling the streets of Washington with indignation at these institutions.

We encourage everyone who is hearing about the 50 Years Is Enough Network for the first time during this mobilization to read further in this newsletter, to sign up for a subscription, and support the work of the Network. We will need everyone who cares about this issues on board as we face the challenges of implementing our agenda in the days after the end of the Mobilization. The struggle for global economic justice has taken another big step with the Mobilization, but there are many more to come.

Why these meetings?

On April 16 and 17 the limousines carrying the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of some 25 countries and the heads of many international institutions (such as the WTO) are slated to pull up in the driveway of the IMF, where the officials will be deposited for the Spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. The meeting on Sunday, April 16 is of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, which until September 1999 was known as "the Interim Committee." The Interim Committee has historically guided the polices that the IMF imposes on those countries it lends to, from the high-profile "bailout" countries of Brazil, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia to about 90 of the world‚s poorest countries, throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the IMF has dictated economic policy for 20 years. These policies have led to massive impoverishment, unemployment, environmental devastation, and loss of economic sovereignty to corporations. The meeting on Monday, April 17, is of the Development Committee, which also brings together officials on the ministerial level, and which is supposed to advise the institutions on development issues facing the Global South. Needless to say, it has far less influence than the Interim/International Financial and Monetary Committee.

Who attends these meetings?

Our protests target two meetings, one of the International Monetary &Financial Committee of the IMF, on Sunday, April 16, and the other of the World Bank Development Committee. The latter is attended by many government officials of ministerial rank or slightly lower. The more important meeting is that of the IMF committee, which is meeting under this name for the first time. The new name is meant to be more assertive. As the following attendance list from that last meeting shows, this committee contains a great number of the most influential figures in the global economy: the Managing Director of the IMF; Finance Ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Gabon, Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Japan, Belgium, India, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands; central bank governors of the United Kingdom, Venezuela, Australia, China, Russia, Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia; and the heads of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, and observers from the following institutions (in most cases, the heads): the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).