Opponents of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank returned to the streets of downtown Washington yesterday, marching in smaller numbers and more subdued than in years past.
The anti-globalization movement has been struggling to regain its momentum as the war in Iraq and the Bush administration have become the favorite targets of social protest. Four years ago this month, the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank brought roughly 20,000 activists to Washington for a series of sometimes-raucous protests that ended in mass arrests.
Maya Renee, a student from Bellingham, Wash., chants with her fellow protesters as the anti-globalization march moves down K Street NW.
(Photos Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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Yesterday's demonstration, coinciding again with the spring meetings and coming a day before a women's rights march, attracted fewer participants and resulted in less disruption.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey reported no major incidents. At least 15 cars were scratched with keys on downtown streets, resulting in the arrest of one woman suspected of several of the acts of vandalism, police said. Another car was spray-painted, and a man was arrested for shooting tacks with a slingshot at an officer. "I'm pleased with it in terms of that there was no one hurt and no serious property damage," Ramsey said of the protest.
Ramsey estimated that the march drew 1,500 to 2,000 people but said D.C. police do not issue official crowd counts.
Organizers, who said they drew 3,500, were pleased with the turnout and the mostly peaceful tenor of protesters. "We wanted to show that we're not out here to be violent, and we're not here to have a standoff with anybody besides the IMF and World Bank," said D.C. resident Matt Kavanagh, 25, of the Mobilization for Global Justice, the Washington-based coalition that helped organize the 2000 demonstrations and coordinated many of this year's activities.
Marching alongside Kavanagh in the sun was an eclectic mix of men and women from the Washington area and as far away as California whose causes fell under the umbrella of "global justice." Members of the International Socialist Organization handed out newspapers, college students carried banners protesting sweatshop labor, and a young man in a black beret waved a red Soviet flag.
The homemade and computer-designed signs protesters carried offered nods toward the environment ("Dam the World Bank, Not the World's Rivers"), today's march for women's rights ("Revolutionary Feminists for Reproductive Rights"), the economic injustice many protesters believe the institutions encourage ("End Global Apartheid!") and, in the case of one sign referring to World Bank and IMF's recent anniversary, pop culture ("Trump Says 60 Years is Enough -- You're Fired").
A number of the marchers came to Washington for the March for Women's Lives and viewed yesterday's gathering as a prelude to that event. Trish Morrison and Laura Ross attended a pre-march rally at Franklin Square at 14th and K streets NW, taking advantage of a small crowd of drummers, college students and others to pass out National Organization for Women stickers and get petitions signed in anticipation of the march for abortion rights. "I was expecting a lot more craziness," said Morrison, a 35-year-old marketing director from Austin. "I think this is more effective. More people want to listen to what you've got to say if you've got a smile on your face."
The rally at the shaded downtown park illustrated the less-militant tone organizers had adopted this year compared with past protests. Four years ago, protesters publicly called for using civil disobedience to keep officials from entering meetings and possibly trap them in their hotels. There were no such calls this time, as activists gathered at Franklin Square to listen to speeches and dance to folk singers.
As police on horseback, bicycles and motorcycles and on foot watched on the outskirts of the park, and as one helicopter hovered far overhead and another made passes over the crowd, several hundred protesters talked in clusters, some beating empty plastic buckets, others hugging and snapping photos. A middle-aged man with green hair embraced a woman as a folk song played over the loudspeakers. A young man with a folded map of the District in his back pocket crouched on the concrete in the center of the park and scrawled "Global resistance" in yellow chalk.
Along the march route from the park to the two institutions' Foggy Bottom headquarters and throughout a week of vigils, conferences and rallies, activists decried dam and coal mine projects supported by the IMF and World Bank. They said the institutions' policies and programs lead to the relocation of indigenous peoples and pollute the environment, provide too little debt relief to too few countries and implement loans that force governments to put corporate profits over the concerns of communities.
"We can't let these issues kind of disappear," said Njoki Njoroge Njehu, a Kenyan-born Mobilization activist. Njehu and other activists said they did not fret about the turnout. Njehu said she takes the long view, remembering April 1999, when the IMF and World Bank spring meetings were greeted with the smallest of protests, about 25 strong. "We have to mature and recognize that there are cycles in terms of any kind of movement," she said.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the July 1944 United Nations conference that gave birth to the IMF and World Bank. The World Bank and IMF dispute activists' characterization of their work. The two institutions see themselves as part of the solution to some of the world's most pressing problems, not part of the cause. The World Bank, which is made up of 184 member countries, provides loans, policy advice and other forms of assistance to developing countries. The IMF, which also has 184 member nations, says that it promotes international monetary cooperation, fosters economic growth and provides temporary financial aid to countries.
