Press Release: April 2002 Protest

50 Years Is Enough Network
Apr 18, 2002
by 50 Years Is Enough Network

For Immediate Release: April 18, 2002

Contact: Njoki Njoroge Njehu 202/746-4318 / Soren Ambrose 202/285-5836

EVENT: RALLY & MARCH FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE
Co-Sponsored by the 50 Years Is Enough Network & the Mobilization for
Global Justice
SATURDAY - APRIL 20, 2002 - 11:00 a.m.
At the Spring Meetings of the IMF & World Bank 18th & Pennsylvania, N.W.
Washington

IMF/WORLD BANK PROTEST SET FOR SATURDAY

As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank again convene the
highest-level regular meeting of global economic decision-makers, people
from around the United States and the world will raise their voices in
opposition to their disastrous policies.

The 50 Years Is Enough Network, which has organized protests outside each
IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington since 1995, joins with the
Mobilization for Global Justice (its co-organizer in April 2000 and April 2001)
in making four demands that would begin to address the damage done by the
imposition of a corporate economic agenda by the Washington-based
institutions:

Together with the Mobilization for Global Justice, the 50 Years Is Enough
Network reiterates it four central demands of the World Bank and IMF:

1) Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the media and the public
2) Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank & IMF, using the
institutions' own resources.
3) End all World Bank & IMF policies that hinder people's access to food,
clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to organize. (Such
"structural adjustment" policies include user fees, privatization, and economic
austerity programs.)
4) Stop all World Bank support for socially & environmentally destructive
projects such as oil, gas, and mining activities, and all support for projects
such as dams that include forced relocation of people.

SPEAKERS AT THE RALLY (list subject to change):
Emcess: Rob Weissman, Essential Action & Crystal Sylvia, Mobilization for
Global Justice
Nawal el-Saadawi (Egypt): renowned feminist, novelist, and political essayist
(invited)
Nora Cortiñas (Argentina): Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo (may have visa
problems)
Godfrey Kanyenze (Zimbabwe): SAPRIN / Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade
Unions (ZCTU)
Shelley Rao (Fiji): Jubilee South
Ivan Cisneros (Ecuador): Institute for Ecology and Development in Andean
Communities
Vanessa Dixon (Washington, DC): Service Employees Intl. Union & Health
Care Now
Njoki Njoroge Njehu (Kenya / Washington, DC): 50 Years Is Enough Network

We are deeply concerned, again, by the reaction of the Metropolitan Police
Department to the demonstrations this weekend. Despite a record of protests
free of property destruction or violence against people, Chief Ramsey and
Executive Assistant Chief Gainer have insisted on bellicose rhetoric which,
together with repeated television broadcasts of April 2000 protesters pushing
against a fence, serves only to frighten the people of Washington, and
buttress the department's demands for millions of dollars from the federal
government.

We know of no reason for the police to expect violence or other unusual
challenges to public order. We recommend that the media closely examine
the reasons for the exaggerated response, and in particular the exorbitant
expenditure of public funds, that has come to accompany virtually any large
protest in Washington. A comparison to the preparations for and damage
done to nearby College Park when the University of Maryland won recent
NCAA basketball tournament might also yield an interesting perspective.

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50 Years Is Enough Network - 3628 12th St NE, Washington, DC 20017 USA
Tel: 202-IMF-BANK (202-463-2265) Email: info@50years.org