South resists WTO

Developing nations and WTO / IMF

Report details pattern of southern nations' resistance to WTO and IMF

By Brian Kenety

PRAGUE, Sep. 25 (IPS) -- A report released today details what the authors say is a largely ignored pattern of protests in poor countries against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its policies, which has been eclipsed by high-profile actions in the West.

Since the "Battle of Seattle" in December, when anti-globalization protesters laid siege to the ministerial meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), there have been at least 50 separate episodes of civil unrest in 13 poor countries, all directed at the IMF, said the report by the London-based World Development Movement (WDM).

The report, "States of Unrest: Resistance to IMF Policies in Poor Countries," comes on the eve of massive protests against the Fund and the World Bank, whose annual meetings get officially underway here tomorrow.

The WDM said that the media have heralded the dawn of a new movement in Europe and North America epitomized by protests aimed at the WTO, IMF and the World Bank.

"However, this 'new movement' portrayed by the media as students and anarchists from the rich and prosperous global north is just the tip of the iceberg," said co-authors, Jessica Woodroffe and Mark Ellis-Jones, in the introduction to the report.

"In the global south, a far deeper and wide-ranging movement has been developing for years, largely ignored by the media," they said. "Millions of people around the world have been brave enough to protest against IMF policies. From Argentina to Zambia, farmers, priests, teachers and trade unionists have called for an end to IMF-imposed economic reforms," said Woodroffe in a separate statement. She called attempts by the Fund and the Bank to dismiss protesters as rich students "naive and insulting."

Furthermore, Woodroffe said it was significant that these protests have happened since the IMF announced its new commitment to poverty reduction at its annual meetings last September.

"The depth of opposition reveals just how far the IMF has to go if its new poverty reduction rhetoric is to be anything more than a re-branding exercise," she said.

According to the WDM, of the 50 separate protests documented in the report, conservative estimates indicate that more than half of them ended in the deployment of riot police or the army.

A total of 10 people have lost their lives and over 300 persons have been injured in protests against the IMF and its policies.

"Millions of people around the world have seen the IMF attempting to undermine their national governments. It is seen as forcing countries into a one-size-fits-all blue print of economic development," said Woodroffe.

The report notes that the standard IMF package of reforms, called a Structural Adjustment Program, often involves common elements.

These include reducing government spending by laying off workers, freezing salaries, and slashing funding for health, education and social services.

Other elements are the privatization of state-run industries, leading to massive lay-offs with no social security provision and the loss of inefficient services to remote or poor areas; currency devaluation and export promotion, leading to the soaring cost of imports, land use charged for cash crops, and reliance on international commodity markets.

Developing countries are still locked into a dependent relationship with the international financial institutions and donor governments, said the WDM report, which gives a detailed country-by-country summary that, it says, shows how deeply the poor oppose the implementation of "liberalization policies which hurt the poor."

In Bolivia, escalating protests against the privatization of water and a 200 percent price hike led to serious riots and calls for the government to end IMF policies. The president was forced to call a state of emergency and six people were killed.

In Ecuador this January, IMF protests led to the storming of the legislature, briefly occupied by 3,000 people, with another 10,000 protesting outside.

In Paraguay in June, participants in a 48-hour general strike against the privatization of telephone, water and rail service were told it was non-negotiable as part of the IMF package.

In July in Nigeria, the newly elected president faced a general strike against the deregulation of the oil sector and fuel price hikes (part of the IMF program).

The Nigerian House of Representatives adopted a non-binding motion urging the federal government to suspend all activities with respect to the IMF loan.

The report notes that in Brazil this month, more than a million people voted against IMF reforms in a mock referendum, and thousands followed the vote with a mass demonstration called "Cry of the Excluded."

"States of Unrest" details similar examples of protests in Columbia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia, countries where the World Development Movement says IMF policies are threatening fragile and newly established democracies.

Meanwhile, in the run-up to the IMF/World Bank meetings here in Prague, it is the students and anarchists from the global North who are making world headlines.

About 1,000 activists took part in a march yesterday that was organized by INPEG, a loose coalition of Czech anarchists, environmentalists and leftist social activists united against economic globalization.

The group is calling for the IMF and World Bank to be shut down. The coalition notes that the IMF itself has said that "in recent decades nearly one-fifth of the world population have regressed in relative and sometimes even absolute terms" and that this is "arguably one of the greatest economic failures of the 20th century."

But INPEG says that the international financial institutions "refuse to see their current lending policies to poverty-ridden countries as part of the problem. In 54 percent of countries borrowing funds from the World Bank, the people experienced stagnating per capita income, rising poverty, declining life expectancy, or a combination of all of the above."

INPEG, this week, is hosting a "Counter Summit" at which activists from around the world are discussing grassroots alternatives to the IMF/World Bank development model.

The coalition, which has emerged as a the main organizer of the more radical elements protesting here, is calling on protesters to "make some noise" -- to "bring whistles, shakers, and things to rattle" to Prague in order to drown out the IMF/World Bank annual meetings "in a cacophony against capital."

"Imagine the IMF and WB delegates unable to concentrate because of the endless cacophony outside. Imagine their weary surprise when having finally managed to return to their hotels, the noise continues throughout the night keeping them awake in their sterile 'luxury' rooms wondering why they are missing out on all the fun outside!" said the group.

A separate protest yesterday, a mock funeral procession staged by the debt cancellation crusaders Jubilee 2000, also drew about 1,000 people.

Organizers say that 19,000 children die each day because developing countries must spend scarce funds to service their debts, diverting money from basic health, education and social services.

Thanks to Bill Knox for sharing this report.