[mgj-discuss] April 16th 2005 Call To Action!

[Catherine Benedict]

A Better World Is Under Construction!

Call for a Mass Mobilization during the 2005 Spring Meetings of the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund

April 15-17th, Washington DC. The main action will be April 16.

The 2005 meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank
will represent the five year anniversary of the first major demonstrations
against these institutions in the United States. Again we will gather in the
streets of D.C. on A16 to show that our resistance to these institutions and
their greed only grows stronger. A16 will once more be the day we show that
our dreams for a better world are not only possible, but under construction
at this moment, in all corners of the globe- and the IMF and World Bank,
with all their efforts to demolish these dreams and actions, can never stop
us.

The World Bank claims to combat world poverty. The IMF claims to promote
global economic stability. For the 60 years of their existence, they have
done neither. The World Bank has poured billions into dams, mining, and
other projects that have caused immense social and environmental
destruction, displacing poor, often indigenous, people from their lands and
livelihoods, and destroying fragile ecosystems. The IMF has destabilized the
economies of countries like Korea, Thailand, and Argentina, creating mass
unemployment.  Together, the IMF and World Bank have trapped poor countries
in a cycle of unpayable debt. To extract debt repayment from them, they have
imposed conditions such as budget caps, user fees for health care, and
privatization of water. These policies have impoverished billions. They have
also corroded self-determination and corrupted political systems, making
governments accountable to foreign creditors rather than their own people.

Instead of building the world that they have promised, the World Bank and
IMF have plunged it into a global crisis that is now more urgent than ever.
The number of people in abject poverty worldwide is at an all-time high, and
more and more people lack access to water, healthcare, education and other
basic services. The world is headed for environmental disaster, while World
Bank fossil fuel projects account for half of world carbon dioxide
emissions. The global AIDS epidemic is spreading - 7,000 people in Africa
die of AIDS every day. And now it is quickly reaching crisis proportions in
the Caribbean, India, Thailand, and Eastern Europe. According to the United
Nations, 30,000 people worldwide die every day as a direct consequence of
IMF and World Bank-imposed cuts in social services.

Over the 60 years of their existence, the IMF and World Bank have shown
themselves to be utterly arrogant institutions which completely ignore
people's voices worldwide and systematically enrich multinational corporate
interests at the expense of nature and of the rest of humanity. It's time to
demolish these institutions and build a better world.

Each day people around the world people are coming together to construct a
better, more just world. Not only are they demonstrating in the streets, but
they are actively reclaiming their communities.  In South Africa, citizens
too poor to afford the privatized water have dismantled water meters and
learned plumbing to connect homes to water services. In Argentina unemployed
workers are taking over the factories they used to work in and running them
as collectives. Facing the devastating effects of World Bank and IMF
Structural Adjustment Policies, people throughout the Global South are
working everyday to take back their rights to water, health, land, a clean
environment, and self-determination.  Five years after thousands of
activists came to Washington DC in the first mass show in the U.S. of
dissent and solidarity with the global struggle against the World Bank and
IMF, the Mobilization for Global Justice is calling for people to come to
Washington DC April 15-17th, 2005 to protest the institutions during their
semi-annual spring meetings and to celebrate the other, more just world that
is under construction due to the daily resistance of millions of people
worldwide!

For more Information: www.globalizethis.org or mgj at riseup.net

The Mobilization for Global Justice is committed to making all events safe
spaces that are open, accessible, and accepting of all. We welcome everyone
to participate in making this happen. If you have any special needs, please
let us know.