GLOBAL PROTESTERS REFUSE TO SHUN VIOLENCE. Activists organizing protests of next month's World Bank and IMF meetings refused to renounce violence at a press conference on Tuesday in Washington, instead focusing on four "demands," the Washington Times (p. C1) reports.
Members of Mobilization for Global Justice, an umbrella group of protesters, refused all questions about the coming Washington street action, which police predict could be far more violent than in recent years. "It is the obligation of the people in this room now to ... focus on the substantive issues," Robert Weissman, co-director of Washington-based corporate accountability group Essential Action, told journalists. "We're going to ask for your cooperation in that. In fact we're going to insist on it."
Those issues, activists said, have been grouped into four broad categories. They are demanding that the World Bank and IMF cancel the debts of all impoverished countries and end policies that hinder access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education and the right to organize. Protesters also want the lenders to stop supporting "destructive" projects such as oil, gas and mining activities, and are calling on the World Bank and IMF to open their meeting to media and the public.
World Bank spokeswoman Caroline Anstey said her organization has consulted with nongovernmental organizations during recent summits and meetings around the world. She said the World Bank welcomes more discussion, but only with those who renounce violence. "I think we very much want to sit down and discuss these issues with them ... but we can't debate with groups that are bent on destruction."
The Calgary Herald (Canada, p. D12) and Reuters add the World Bank said transcripts from meetings and many documents are made public on its web site, but that some decisions have to made behind closed doors. While the protesters call for open lenders' meetings, the coalition has closed portions of its own gatherings to reporters and completely bans cameras from them.
Tuesday wasn't the first time members of the Mobilization for Global Justice have refused to separate themselves from the anarchists, known as the Black Bloc, the Washington Times continues. "It is very troubling," said D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. He said the peaceful protesters have a "responsibility to help rid their ranks of this kind of activity."
The news comes as the Guardian (UK) says in an editorial that there is good reason to be wary of the current vogue to attack the World Bank. It is struggling with an identity crisis as its historic role of funding infrastructure passes to the private sector and it moves into areas such as education and health. It may be an imperfect institution, but many of its faults lie with the parsimony of the G8 countries which fund it, while the principle of global cooperation to tackle poverty on which it was founded is more pressing than ever.