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IMF & World Bank Wanted For Fraud Campaign
Contact Explo Nani-Kofi 020 8749 7179

NO TO THE WTO!
About two hundred people filled the Upper Hall of the University of London Union on Saturday 10 November for a public meeting with the theme "World Trade = International Finance Fraud, Terrorism and Genocide". It was organised by the IMF & World Bank Wanted For Fraud Campaign to coincide with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Summit in Qatar. The meeting was preceded by a picket of the Qatar Embassy in London on 9 November, the opening day of the WTO Summit.

Explo Nani-Kofi, the co-ordinator of the Campaign, noted that the anti-globalisation movement in the north is on the upsurge, as seen in demonstrations in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and the one scheduled for Brussels in December. However, we need to move beyond anger and link the anti-globalisation movement with the real resistance in the south in order to build a mechanism for transforming the world.

Mukhtar Rana of the Peace and Human Rights Trust pointed out that the IMF and World Bank are the financial weapons of neo-colonialism responsible for fraud, corruption and genocide. He illustrated this with the way they were used by the west to instal Suharto in Indonesia where millions of activists were then murdered.

Tony Benn, former MP and founding member of the Movement For Colonial Freedom, drew attention to how capitalism in its early stages in Britain tried out all that is being done on a global scale - for example, land privatisation. He expressed his excitement at remembering no time in Britain when there have been so many meetings for justice, peace and social progress. On the IMF and World Bank, he is alarmed by the danger they pose globally and referred to how in the 1970s they brought down the Labour government of which he was a member.

A trade unionist Pat Budu, who looked at the IMF and World Bank with regard to Africa, said that African governments manage the debt instead of national economies. She noted that IMF programmes make African economies vulnerable to exploitation by multinational companies. She illustrated the example of the marginalisation of the state with the case of Sudan where the Sudanese government has only 5% shares in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, while a Canadian company has 25%, an Indonesian group 30%, and a Chinese outfit 40%.

Taking on the issue of building the movement against global injustice, Selma James of the International Wages for Housework Campaign described some problems the movement faces: there is no State or party to defend grassroots people; NGOs everywhere take funding in our name and use it against us; the left wants to be in charge of the movement rather than accountable to it. She stressed the role of grassroots women throughout her speech and noted the IMF and World Bank Wanted For Fraud's acknowledgement of that role. As women do 2/3 of the world's work, most of it unwaged, it is women who suffer from the poverty and overwork imposed by the IMF and World Bank, and it is women's struggle against them which is most invisible. She spoke about the Global Women's Strike whose theme is "Invest In Caring Not Killing", as a strategy against the war and globalisation.

The main pillar of the Campaign's objectives, international debt fraud, was taken up by George Monbiot, an author and campaigning journalist. In illustrating 3rd World debt fraud, he looked at the case of Ghana where under pressure from the IMF and Britain's Department for International Trade and Development, the Ghana government has raised the price of water two times and three times in some cases. Ghanaians, who cannot pay and will take water from ditches and streams, will get cholera, bilharzia and guinea worms. Then the government will have to take loans to buy medicenes from the multinationals. He explained how the west has been stealing from the Americas, Asia, and Africa and now claims these nations are in debt, when the debt is actually the other way round.

The final speaker was Maria Vasquez-Aguilar of the Chilean community in Sheffield. She treated the audience to the effect of the US intervention in Chile which overthrew Salvador Allende's government, one committted to providing social services to the people. She pointed out that it took the US puppet regime of Pinochet fifteen years to reach the level of production that the Allende government attained in three years. Enumerating the effects of IMF policies, she informed the gathering that Chile has the highest rate of depression in the south, one three children has parasites, and 46% of the soil has eroded.

Members of the audience commented on how inspiring they found the meeting, and felt that it was a break-through in addressing the question of focussing the movement on issues which are often sidelined in general debate and media coverage. The general discussion noted the destructive role of NGOs which are manipulated by the west, western govenments' criminalisation of liberation movements and communities under the guise of fighting terrorism, and the marginalisation of activists from the south by groupings in the north and by the media. In response to praise for Mandela of South Africa, it was pointed out that he suppled arms to Suharto of Indonesia. There was also a solidarity message from Gary Younge, a journalist on the Guardian.