Beltway Area Indymedia

Call to Action: Dignity, Autonomy, and Solidarity over Greed and Corporate Power!

Disrupt the IMF and the World Bank meetings: Washington DC, October 19-21, 2007
The misery forced on millions by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank is unacceptable and renders them illegitimate.

1:
Colombian President Uribe,a US trained imperialist thug, visited DC on May 2 to push the embattled US-Colombia Free Trade area. He was over an hour late to his event at 1333 H st-and was confronted in person, face to face, when he arrived!

An estimated 200 protestors were on hand, and at first it appeared he would do a Tony the Rat and try to wait everyone out. Finally he arrived-and his offer to meet a delegation of three people was rebuffed.

Audio:3 min 49 seconds

Two days after the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, at noon on April 18, Code Pink and 50 years staged another protest to demand that Paul Wolfowitz resign. Packed bags were displayed and crime scene tape strung by uniformed "Pink police" from Code Pink.

The Code Pink "Pink Police" were a blast, wearing custom-made uniforms that looked like cop uniforms except for being PINK! In addition, crime tape was strung in front of the World Bank, and luggage rolled around bearing name tags for Wolfowitz and destinations like "Federal Court" and "The Hague."

Audio files:
Intro: 1:25
Congo March: 7:38
IMF Soccer Riot 2007: 2:09

From April 12 to April 15, an unusual set of protests accompanied the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings. This time around, instead of thousands of students, many protesters were first generation Congolese immigrants, union workers, or others harmed by neoliberal economics.

The UNITE HERE protest(covered elsewhere) was a clear threat by hotel workers to strike during the Fall Meeting is they don't get a fair contract.

In an unannounced action on the evening of April 14th, two dozen individuals braved the cold rain and took to the streets with makeshift soccer balls and noisemakers in hand, to send a message to World Bank and IMF delegates in town for the joint spring meetings of the Bank and Fund. Amidst the now infamous Wolfowitz corruption scandal and the subsequent discontent brewing within the Bank, global justice demonstrators went beyond the reformist rhetoric of those calling for the resignation of current World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and called for the closure of the Bank itself.

Members of the Mobilization for Global Justice staged a mock press conference Thursday, a day prior to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring meetings. On the eve of the US annual tax filing deadline of April 16, MGJ called attention to regressive tax policies pushed by the IMF on borrowing countries, which systematically transfer the tax burden from the wealthy to the poor.

Examples of regressive IMF tax policy around the world include:

(audio 3 min 57 seconds)
On Friday, April 13, demonstrators erected a sign in Wolfowitz's lawn in front of 7104 Pinehurst Parkway, his home off Western Ave. This time, we didn't have to break out the air horns and yell, as the mainstream press has been doing the yelling for us.As the sign says "Paul Wolfowitz steals from the poor and gives the money to his ex-girlfriend. This scandal has led to a torrent of nasty press coverage and at this point will probably cost Wolfie his job.
With luck, this neocon bastard will STAY retired!