Philadelphia Inquirer | By Laura MacInnis | April 26, 2004
Protests outside the World Bank and International Monetary Fund headquarters this weekend had an upbeat feel, with small groups of activists dancing, laughing, and reveling in the sun.
By all accounts, the "Festival of Resistance" was a far cry from the "Battle of Seattle."
In the nearly five years since demonstrators shut down the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, fighting police and vandalizing symbols of corporate America, the antiglobalization movement has reinvented itself.
Gone are the days of tear gas and scores of arrests. Police reported only two arrests related to Saturday's protest, both having to do with destruction of property.
Demonstrators were armed only with puppets and pom-poms. They carried signs on a number of topics, including debt relief, women's reproductive rights, the war in Iraq, and this year's presidential election.
Though the weather was near perfect, organizers estimated the crowds reached only 3,000 people, compared with the tens of thousands who came to the capital to protest the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in 2000.
Organizers said the peaceful, festive rally was a sign their movement had changed. "The anticorporate globalization movement is in the process of maturing. We are digging in for the long haul," said David Levy of Mobilization for Global Justice, a network of groups that organized the protests.
"Everyone knows this battle is not going to be won in a day or a month or a year," he said. "It's going to take years and years to stop these grotesquely overfinanced institutions."
Protests against the IMF and World Bank have become a kind of springtime rite in Washington. This year, however, groups did not issue a wide appeal for activists to attend the demonstrations, and the turnout reflected that.
Njoki Njehu of 50 Years Is Enough said ahead of the protests that many activists were busy this year with U.S. presidential campaign work.
The Jubilee USA Network asked activists to show solidarity with the movement by mailing "Unhappy Birthday" cards marking the IMF and World Bank's 60th anniversary. The group received nearly 11,000 of the cards, which asked the lenders to cancel the debt of poor countries.
Marie Clarke of Jubilee USA said activists were using some new tactics, but added that Washington street protests had an important symbolic value in keeping pressure on the lenders.
"It's more decentralized. Less focus is placed on huge mobilizations," she said. "People keep coming to the streets because the debt issue has not been resolved. It's like the elephant in the room."
Many critics of the IMF and World Bank argue the lenders restrict the policy choices of countries who accept their loans. Mobilization for Global Justice calls for the outright cancellation of poor countries' debt to free up national resources for health, education and other social services.Philadelphia Inquirer:
