Violence Erupts at Protest in Georgetown

Demonstrators march through Georgetown in protest of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, one of several rallies this weekend. (By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

Several demonstrators at the afternoon rally wore dark bandannas over their faces. One carried a black flag. Another wore a T-shirt that read, "Don't Tase Me Bro."

"We declare today a day of solidarity with immigrants," said Marco Del Fuego, an organizer with the October Coalition, which is staging the weekend's rallies. He decried proposals to arrest illegal immigrants, moves he said "would require police to racially profile our community. . . . We are against that."

Basav Sen, 42, of Petworth, said: "I'm here to protest the racist, abusive policies of the United States. And to connect these policies with the global economy.

"The policies that drive people from their home countries to migrate to the United States are in fact the very policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank," he said. Free-trade policies, for example, might open markets but can drive small firms out of business, he said.

Speaking earlier yesterday about the coming protest in Georgetown, Del Fuego called the neighborhood "a seat of excessive wealth and privilege [where] they don't care very much about the poverty and misery on the other side of the city."

Goods bought and sold there "are made in the sweatshops of . . . Third World countries," he said, and customers "don't care at all about the consuming habits, how that causes misery and poverty, not only here but in communities all over the world."

Staff writer Allison Klein contributed to this report.