50 Years Is Enough Network; Center for Economic Justice; DC Labor FilmFest; DC Metro Labor Council; Essential Action; Jobs with Justice; Jubilee USA Network; present . . .

2002 Global Justice Film Festival
September 5-26, 2002

A collection of 15 films documenting the horrors of global poverty and development, discussions led activists and campaigners to follow:

Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and John Berger, a British art critic, discuss the effects of globalization worldwide. A series of pictures called “ Migrations” is the result of a journey of six years in over 43 different countries ranging across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The devastating pictures capture deaths, broken families, poverty, hunger, homelessness and etc. Together they argue that pictures are stronger than stats and emphasize the struggle of those suffering due to globalization. “THE SPECTRE OF HOPE is both a remarkable conversation between Brazilian economist-photographer Sebastião Salgado and British art critic-novelist John Berger and a stunning portrait (in Salgado’s pictures) of what globalization really looks like in Rwanda, Mexico, Mozambique, Sudan and erstwhile Yugoslavia.” - John Leonard, New York Magazine.

DISCUSSANTS: Joanne Carter, RESULTS & Irungu Houghton, ActionAid USA
VENUE: Communication Workers of America / Jobs with Justice 501 3rd Street, N.W. (Metro: Judiciary Square)

For over two decades the IMF and World Bank have been dispensing economic advice to Africa. The package of economic policies, also applied in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, and former Soviet-bloc countries, are widely known as structural adjustment programs (SAPs). A Structural Adjustment Program is a set of "free market" economic policies that are a set as condition for receiving assistance from the IMF and World Bank. These "free market" policies are designed to improve a country's foreign investment climate by eliminating trade and investment regulations, boosting foreign exchange earnings by promoting exports, privatization, and reducing government deficits through cuts in spending. Over 90 countries have undergone structural adjustment since its inception in 1979. In spite of cultural, political, economic, and social diversity in all of these countries, the World Bank and IMF have issued virtually identical Structural Adjustment prescriptions for the countries. SAP-like policies have also been appearing in countries of the Global North, for instance the 1996 Welfare Reform Law is such an instance. This poignant film takes a close look at the lives, families, livelihoods, environment, and communities, of women in Ghana, Zambia, and Uganda, the impact of SAPs and their struggles against SAPs.

DISCUSSANT: Njoki Njoroge Njehu, 50 Years Is Enough Network
VENUE: The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

Zackie Ashmat is the founder and chairperson of TAC, Treatment Action Campaign in Cape Town, South Africa. He is HIV positive and refuses to take anti-retroviral until they are available to everyone suffering from HIV/AIDs. Using himself as a form of protest (by not taking medication) he asks the government of South Africa to stop buying arms and metal scrap and to use that money for medication and public health. Zackie leads a court battle against the multinational drug companies to allow the introduction of cheaper, generic drugs, and takes on the South African government for its confusing policies around HIV/AIDs. Zackie continues his struggle in search of a better place for those who cannot afford proper health care as they continue to die due to negligence of their government. “IT’S MY LIFE is a true and a hopeful interchange which transcends borders” - Jury of the 2001 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam

DISCUSSANT: Rob Weissman, Essential Action
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

Globalization is the new world economy. Large corporations continue to move their factories to developing countries to decrease cost and boost production. As an example workers in Indiana have suffered the lost of jobs as more factories from the U.S. move their factories to Mexico in search of “misery, poverty, and unemployment, for cheap jobs which is deadly for human rights”. The “race to the bottom” is described as competition between Third World (sic) countries and developed countries which have strong international ties while their own economy continues to collapse. This includes the overwhelming number of sweatshops and unskilled labor, which large corporations are continuously seeking. These factories also escape environmental regulations causing much harm, such as deforestation, species extinction, the depletion of the ozone layer, and poisoning of communities.

A group of women from Tennessee who were laid off from their factories jobs at GM and GE decide to do research on where their jobs went. When they arrive in Mexico they were shocked to see the enormous factories and the horrifying working conditions for the workers. They talk to workers who were laid off because they were unable to attain the high number of production and witness pesticide factories dumping its waste into the city sewers. When they arrive back in the US they are united with other women who have also been laid off from their factory jobs. In a public hearing they give their analysis of what they witnessed in Mexico, noting the enormous gap in wages, the poor law enforcement, and working conditions. They call for a readjustment of the North American Free Trade Agreement and ask the government to become more involved in ensuring human rights and justice in places like Mexico.

The IMF/World Bank meetings and protests in April 200o through the eyes of two South Africans. 30,000 protestors took to the streets in Washington DC on April 16, 2000. In the Bank, finance minister Trevor Manuel, champion of South Africa's conservative economic policy and chair of the IMF/World Bank board. On the streets, Soweto activist and African National Congress member, Trevor Ngwane, joined the protestors. Through the oft-humorous adventures of the Two Trevors we get a unique inside picture of the commanding heights of the world economy, and of the protest movement that has emerged to challenge those commanding heights. The problems of Africa started centuries ago with colonialism and slavery. We don’t owe the World Bank anything. They owe us a life! -- Trevor Ngwane, Anti-Privatization Forum, Soweto, South Africa.

DISCUSSANTS: Fred Azcarate, Jobs With Justice & Soren Ambrose, New Voices on Globalization
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

The World Conference Against Racism was held in Durban in order to celebrate the end of apartheid, while delegates celebrated on the other end of the city people still continued to live without proper homes or sanitation. Concerned citizen’s groups protest the privatization of water, and speak out for the liberation of Palestine. The Landless People conference support landless Palestinians and hold up signs that state, protesters demand reparations from Swiss banks because of its involvement in the support of apartheid. This is a guerilla-cinema-style compilation of clips, constantly evolving and presented interactively. The film raises questions about the impact of globalization on ordinary South Africans - and questions the stance taken by South African politicians. It includes footage of South African President Thabo Mbeki on protestors, George Soros on global economic injustice, and Louis Michel (Belgium’s foreign minister and chair of the European Union presidency) on colonialism’s brighter side.

DISCUSSANT: Njoki Njoroge Njehu, 50 Years Is Enough Network
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

World Social Forum representatives from 131 countries express their desire and common interest for change worldwide. They demonstrate through protest and discussion what the media has ignored, showing the world that everyday people are involved in the change that is sweeping the world. Youth camps composed of teenagers from many different nations speak of they sorrow and disbelieve of the events of September 11th expressing their lack of understanding that most Americans are unaware of what its government is involved in internationally. Among the speakers are Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Kevin Danaher, Wolfgang Sachs, and Rigoberta Menchu. …. despite a media blackout (on the World Social Forum), the moment for social justice is alive and well around the world. “Another world is not just possible, it is necessary.”

This video is a detailed explanation of what is globalization and the issues surrounding it. At the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil people from around the world gather to discuss ideas and to mobilize against corporate globalization. Corporate globalization refers to privatization, poverty, and transfer of power out of the hands of the people to a place out of reach and is a threat to democracy. They discuss the roles of the IMF, WTO and the World Bank in places like Argentina, once the poster child of globalization, and make links to the collapse of Argentina’s economy with the failure of the economic model prescribed by these institutions. It also highlights alternative movements, such as the Landless People’s Movement that has been able to increase the standard of living, establish health care services, and redistribute land to landless workers. The connection of different people worldwide has given rise to movements that fight for global justice and human rights by challenging corporate globalization and uniting communities.

DISCUSSANTS: Analia Penchaszadeh, Jobs with Justice
VENUE: The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

A description of the neo-liberal economic order as it "embraces" Nicaragua. It is a textbook case of the one-size-fits-all economic and development models of the IMF and the World Bank - it could be Haiti, the Philippines, Nigeria, Kenya, or Argentina today. The video combines outstanding footage of people’s lives and their struggle to survive with a textbook-clear analysis, a country profile, maps, discussion topics, organizing activities, resources and photographs with personal stories told by Nicaraguans. The new (1990s) economic order has again placed Nicaragua at the mercy of its historical nemesis, the United States. ) "The big stick of the Pentagon and the CIA (in Nicaragua) has been replaced with an economic boa constrictor: unemployment. The sounds of helicopters and screaming have stopped, leaving the silence of hungry people and the weak cries of dying children. Nicaragua (in the 1980s) has scoffed at the old Latin American realities; in place of misery, food for all, healthcare for all, education for all, housing for all. Life for all. Now the vultures have come to roost." John Brentlinger, The Best of What We Are: Reflections of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

The S.O.A. (United States School of the Americas) is responsible for training thousands of Latin American soldiers in military tactics, training them to target civilians by kidnappings, tortures and murder. Killings in El Salvador, Mexico, and Colombia have been proven to have been committed by S.O.A. graduates. About 2,000 protesters in Georgia protest to create awareness about the murders committed by S.O.A. graduates and demand that the S.O.A. be shut down. Survivors tell personal stories of whole families being kidnapped and disappeared. The IMF and the World Bank are compared to conquistadors, calling them neo-imperialists who use graduates of the S.O.A. to repress those who organize unions and challenge their authority. S.O.A. is known as the armed force of the IMF and World Bank. Peaceful protesters risk getting arrested in order to get their message across, believing that if more ordinary Americans knew of the devastating effects of the S.O.A. they would speak out against it and ultimately shut down the S.O.A. SOA: Guns and Greed presents powerful statements from students, labor leaders, veterans and church people involved in nonviolent protests to close the School of the Americas. 2000”

DISCUSSANTS: Kathy Hoyt, Nicaragua Network & Matt Smucker, SOA Watch
VENUE: Josephine Butler Parks Center, 2437 15th Street NW (Metro: U Street/Cardozo or Columbia Heights)

Award-winning journalist, John Pilger, investigates the realities of globalization by taking a close look at Indonesia. Pilger examines the effects of multimillion-dollar corporations and the damage they have caused in Indonesia, companies such as Gap, Levis, Nike and Rebook. Globalization has been described as a coming together of different people from different social and ethnic backgrounds when in fact it is widening the gap between the poor and the rich. The film travels to Indonesia and Washington, asking challenging questions that are rarely addressed by the media, it is an in-depth investigation interviewing people from managers and poor sweatshop workers to top officials of the World Bank and the IMF. “In another in a long line of passionate, wide-ranging and informative reports, John Pilger examines globalization: a process which, the believes, enslaves the many in order to empower the few. It is a deeply impressive, informative, heartfelt piece of journalism, and it proves that the small screen still can, when it has a mind to, bring us the big picture.” - Graham McCann, Financial Times.

DISCUSSANT: Maria Roeper, Service Employees International Union
VENUE: The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

Over 90% of the clothes donated in the US to organizations such as the Salvation Army and Good Will, are being sold all over Africa as second-hand clothing and have created a multimillion dollar business. In Zambia, Luka a 19-year-old boy struggles to support his family by buying and selling second-hand clothes from the US. This booming business has generated big profits for merchants who sell the clothes they purchase from the US for a 300-400% profit. Clothes factories in Zambia have been wiped out, in the 1970s there were over 85 manufactures employing over 10,000 people. Today Zambia depends solely on imported goods to supply its people with all aspects of material goods, including but not limited to clothes, appliances, medicine, and etc. Over the years Zambia has become less and less self-sufficient due to outside influences. Debt repayments is another reason for the poverty that afflicts 80% of the population, money that would otherwise go to social programs such as education, health care, food security, safe water, etc. is spent on servicing debts claimed by wealthy creditors and multilateral institutions. The economic policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank which include privatization, which has stripped Zambia of its natural resources and have left the economy in ruins. They claim Zambia is now a free market economy, but the question remains “a free market economy for who?”

DISCUSSANTS: Mahama Bawa, Kobos African Clothiers
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

After Ghana’s independence in 1956 the World Bank loaned money to build dams and roads. International corporations owned commodities such as electricity for over 25 years. As the government tries to cut spending in order to pay back loans, its poor population suffers, as they cannot afford proper health care without government subsidies. The film includes a background on the founding of the IMF and World Bank with a mandate to provide economy relief for developing countries, lend for short-term and long-term loans, and rebuild Europe. When private banks began to make loans to countries, profits tripled. Countries could not pay back their loans and turned to the IMF and World Bank for help, in places like Brazil and the Philippines governments are forced to use the money for social services to pay back their loans and its citizens continue to suffer. Conditions worsen, as the government resorts to cuts in education, health care and social services.

Documents the Memphis Sanitation Workers strike of 1968 and demonstrates the broad coalition between labor, community, and the civil rights movement that was need to win the struggle. Documents Martin Luther King Jr’s last days – he was assassinated while in Memphis supporting the sanitation workers’ struggle. It is an important little known or told labor movement story which also portrays an important piece of African-American and civil rights movement history.

DISCUSSANT for "Banking on Life and Debt": Judy Coode, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
DISCUSSANT for "At the River I Stand": Jobs with Justice Representative
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

Ghana was once hailed by the World Bank as a showcase for its policies. Today, after two decades of financial "discipline" the majority of Ghanaians are worse off than before. Mary Agyekum breaks stones for a living. Small flint hammer in hand, she sits on the parched ground under the sun, chipping away at boulders. Usually some of her six young children help her out. They take it in turns to go to school, because each day's tuition costs money. If she is lucky, Mary takes home 20,000 cedis a week - that's £2 ($3.08). Even water is a commodity - Meanwhile, there is a new plan to sell off water in Ghana, a plan which local campaigners say is disastrous. As in Britain, officials in Ghana have become wary of using the word privatisation. They prefer to call it "private-public partnerships". The World Bank is supporting the sell-off to the tune of $100m. Why, people wonder, must water be self-financing in poor countries, while in the US for example billions of dollars of state money support the industry? In villages where people earn less than $1 a day the system quickly collapses. Still, the experiment is seen by the IMF and World Bank as a template for utility sell-offs across the developing world. And there is a growing sense that what wealth there is in Ghana, is not benefiting its people. http://www.news.bbc.co.uk

DISCUSSANTS: Sara Grusky, International Water Working Group & Rob Weissman, Essential Action
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

For many, the rhetoric of globalization is spouted only by academics and protestors. But for those that live in the throws of the IMF and World Bank on a day-today basis, the theory and posturing are lost in a life of poverty. Through the film Life and Debt, however, the ugly face of globalization has more than dry text and lectures to describe it. "Myself, I thought the IMF was like the Red Cross. I really did," she remembered. "I thought they benevolently, good willed, good intentioned, came in, lent money, let the country do what they want and the country had to pay back. I never knew they had this far-reaching arm into the day-to-day policies of the country." Black's curiosity led her to research the IMF and WTO, which, expectedly, found the American press seldom addressed global economic practices. "You know, in one week in Jamaica, you'd have seven articles [on the IMF]. At least an article a day," said Black. "I came up with six articles over a ten-year period in [the US's] major newspapers. While the IMF was completely out of our visibility, it was completely understood by people living in Jamaica." http://frictionmagazine.com/artful/film/black.asp

DISCUSSANTS: Marie Clarke-Brill, Jubilee USA Network & Bill Fletcher, TransAfrica
VENUE: Communication Workers of America / Jobs with Justice
501 3rd Street, N.W. (Metro: Judiciary Square)

Everyone has heard about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, but almost no one has heard about one of NAFTA’s obscure provisions - except for multinational corporations who are using it to challenge democracy. Bill Moyers Reports: Trading Democracy is the first television investigation of NAFTA’s Chapter 11 - what has been called “an end-run around the constitution.” Corporate investors are using Chapter 11 to attack public laws that protect our health and our environment - and even challenge jury verdicts. The cases are not heard in open court, but before international trade tribunals that rule in secret. The program details a system of private justice that is enabling companies to obtain covertly what they would be unlikely to achieve in America’s legislatures or courts. http://www.films.com

DISCUSSANTS: Carrie Biggs-Adams, Communication Workers of America & Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies
VENUE: Casa Del Pueblo United Methodist Church, 1459 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)

Who said that the economy serves mankind? What is this world where one-third of the population, in the rich countries, or more precisely, the richest 2% in the rich countries, control everything? A world where the economy is law, where this law of the strongest is imposed on the rest of us? Why do we accept this cynical state of being? What happened to Solidarity? These are the questions PROFIT and Nothing But! asks. Capitalism has succeeded in convincing us that it is the only truth. It has even convinced its opponents that their failure within the normal scheme of things. Raoul Peck contrasts this heavily-documented illumination of the capitalist system with the devastating reality of his native land, Haiti - “a country that doesn’t exist, where intellectual discussion has become a luxury.” The film’s stark images of the lives of the damned on earth provide a striking background for talk of “triumphant capitalism.” PROFIT and Nothing But! is a pertinent and impertinent exploration of the profit motive and its consequences in our day-to-day lives, our history, and our outlook for the future.

DISCUSSANT: Camille Chalmers, Ex. Dir. of PAPDA (Platform Ayisen pou Pledwaye yon Devlopman Altenatif)
VENUE: New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1313 New York Avenue, NW (Metro: Metro Center or McPherson Square)

Under pressure from the World Bank, Bolivia has privatized the countries oil and gas pipelines, airline, railway, and electric utility. The result has been weaker labor standards, consumer price hikes and service reductions. The opposition to privatization came to a head when in 2000 Bolivian government sold Cochabamba’s public water system to a British-led consortium International Water Limited (IWL) where San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. holds a 50% stake. Following the purchase, the company increased the water rates by as much as 400 percent. In a country where the minimum wage is $100 per month many families saw their monthly water bill soar past $20. The people of Cochabamba rebelled, a coalition of labor, human rights, and community activists, “La Coordinadora'', brought the city to a halt for four days blockading roads and shutting down transportation. When the government made promises and failed to keep them, a peaceful march was called for on February 4, 2000. President Hugo Banzer summoned the police, they arrested protest leaders from their beds in the dark of night, shut down radio stations, and sent soldiers firing into the street . During two days of repression and tear gas attacks 175 people were injured. When the people of Cochabamba refused to retreat, the Bolivian government declared a "state of siege". After four days of strikes Bolivian government officials were forced to nullify the contract. http://www.1worldcommunication.org

DISCUSSANT: Oscar Olivera, Executive Secretary of the Cochabamba
Federation of Factory Workers and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life, known in Bolivia as La Coordinadora.
VENUE: The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road NW (Metro: Columbia Heights)