Washington, DC

Dear friend of the 50 Years Is Enough Network,

Over the weekend of September 24-25, Washington DC witnessed a historic gathering of over one hundred thousand people from around the country (and beyond) demanding an end to the war and occupation in Iraq. It was the largest anti-war march in Washington since the Vietnam War, and signaled to the politicians here that the outrage kindled by Cindy Sheehan’s protest outside President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch this summer will not abate.

The 50 Years Is Enough Network focuses not directly on war but on the global economic system – so why am I writing about the anti-war march? Consider that the economic policies now being forced on Iraq have been forced on countries from South Africa to Bolivia to the Philippines. In Iraq they are the result of U.S. occupation; in many places, they are the result of IMF and World Bank conditions. The war on Iraq is the latest example of the use of military violence by the U.S. when economic violence, carried out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, is not sufficient or effective enough to maintain control over the natural resources, labor, and markets of the global South.

During the weekend of the anti-war protests the IMF and the World Bank quietly held their joint annual meetings in Washington, D.C. These were also the first meetings for the current president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was a momentous opportunity for the Network and our allies to connect the dots. In coordination with our allies in the anti-war movement, we were successful in highlighting the links between the Iraq war and the system of global injustice -- what many have termed ‘economic apartheid’. Among other activities, we helped organize a “feeder march” and rally of about 3,000 people at Dupont Circle, to take our message of economic justice to the anti-war march.

People in Washington that weekend, including members of the Administration and Congress and their staffs, and equally importantly, anti-war protesters, saw that we were linking military and economic violence, and are used by the U.S., the IMF, and the World Bank to perpetuate a global system that benefits the corporate and political elite while marginalizing, impoverishing, and exploiting the majority of the world’s people.

We at the 50 Years Is Enough Network feel strongly that the work of building a U.S. movement for global economic justice, in solidarity with those in the global south who are the primary victims of injustice, is a priority. If you feel the same way, if you value the news and analysis on this listserv, please consider making a donation to our efforts. You can make a donation by credit card here: http://www.50years.org/donate.html

In addition to working with the anti-war community, we brought activists from the Dominican Republic, India, and South Africa to speak at Dupont Circle on their struggles against the IMF, the World Bank, and militarization. They, along with others, denounced the violence of the U.S. military and the economic violence of the global economy, structured and maintained by the World Bank and IMF. A member of our Network’s board, Virginia Setshedi of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee in South Africa, spoke at the anti-war rally on the complicity between the military machine and the machinery of global economic oppression. Virginia’s speech was featured on C-SPAN, and helped to spread our analysis to the anti-war protesters and a broader audience around the U.S.

After the weekend, we organized a Speaker’s Tour for Global Justice and Peace featuring our Dominican, Indian, and South African colleagues and U.S.-based peace activists. The Tour brought the messages and voices that resounded in Washington to 35 universities, church groups, and community organizations in 19 cities and towns in 9 states. We were able to bring Southern activists to the U.S. because of the generous donations of our supporters over the years.

Your support is important to us in whatever amount and at whatever time you are able to offer it. You can donate by credit card here or you send a check or money order to: 50 Years Is Enough, 3628 12th St NE, Washington DC 20017 USA.

The critical challenges we face now – the efforts your money will go to support – include:

* Ensuring that the unprecedented deal for 100% multilateral debt cancellation for 18 countries, won after more than a decade of consistent campaigning by ourselves and others around the world, is implemented and expanded. The deal, ratified at the IMF/World Bank meetings, is a good start, but it is seriously flawed by its application to too few countries – less than a third who need debt cancellation to fight poverty – and its insertion in a set of pre-conditions that even the World Bank has admitted don’t reduce poverty.

* Monitoring the IMF’s bid for increasing its political power over countries which could free themselves from the institution’s harsh conditions. Traditionally the IMF and World Bank derive their leverage over countries from the mechanism of debt. To combat the possible threat to their power that debt cancellation represents, the IMF has unveiled a new surveillance facility, the Policy Support Instrument (PSI). The PSI holds non-borrowing countries to the same failed policies that the IFIs have forced on the global South for decades, and assures the IMF continued influence in those countries.

* Exposing and ending the IMF and World Bank’s role in disaster capitalism, and in the “reconstruction” of Iraq, Afghanistan, and countries recovering from the December 2004 tsunami. Disasters devastate a country’s population and infrastructure, providing the IMF, the World Bank, and other market ideologues with a weak target and the chance to rebuild an economy with specifications that make corporate powers salivate. The economic program imposed on Iraq by the U.S. – a nearly-complete privatization of the economy - is a dream for the IMF, the World Bank, and their corporate contractors. The “austerity” plans the World Bank has for Iraq’s surviving population - removal of food subsidies, cuts in social programs, and incentives for foreign businesses to move in - threaten to subjugate the Iraqi people to further insecurity and instability.

We can continue to make significant impacts, just as we did with the debt deal. We have the media’s ear on the follow-through on debt. We can expose IMF policy and the biases that Paul Wolfowitz brings to the World Bank. We can de-legitimize these institutions, using their own deeds. But we can only do it if we keep paying our staff and basic expenses. That’s where you come in. Please donate generously! The link again is http://www.50years.org/donate.html

In solidarity,

Sameer Dossani

Director, 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice

P.S. Please let us know if you would like to be placed on our listserv to receive regular updates on IMF/World Bank policies and activism to counter them. If you would like to receive our newsletter, and send a donation over $35, we’ll put you on the list. Just send us an email to info@50years.org letting us know of your interest and your contribution. And for a donation of $75 we will send you a copy of the indispensable Field Guide to the Global Economy, an engaging and informative book that makes the connections between corporate-driven globalization, the World Bank and IMF, and free trade, with the human cost of these processes and policies.