avi salzman

Mark Herman ’00 and Jean Friedman-Rudovsky ’02 lead a group of protestors in forming a hard blockade at an intersection in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Approximately 150 Wesleyan students participated in a series of protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The protesters formed blockades at intersections and around buildings as they tried to keep the IMF and World bank delegates from reaching their meetings.

"Even though we weren’t able to shut down the meetings entirely, we were able to make them more difficult and delay the meetings," said Adam Lachman ’02 who acted as one of two spokespersons for Wesleyan at the protest. "And I think to get press coverage and to be on the front page of newspapers all over the country and the world makes people everywhere more aware of the issue."

Both the World Bank and the IMF were created in the aftermath of World War II at the conference at Bretton Woods. The World Bank was established to help finance the reconstruction of Europe and the development of poorer countries. The IMF is an international economic organization with 182 member nations which lends money to its members in financial trouble. These loans tend to come with conditions mandating economic reform in the borrowing countries.

Many of the students participating in the protests, however, said they believe that these structural adjustments actually do harm to the developing countries, while benefiting wealthy nations such as the United States. Currently the United States is the highest contributor to the IMF, providing more than 18 percent of its total funding.

"Basically the IMF and World Bank are made up of members who are not really interested in developing sustainable markets in the third world," said Joanne Alcantara ’03 who went to Washington as part of the medical crew. "...They make health care, food and water inaccessible to these countries... It’s not an intentional goal, but it’s a by-product of their policies."

"Another part of the problem is in past loan agreements," Lachman said. "They’ve given money to 

forms of government who have used it for the military and not in the interests of the public. Now they have such a high debt that half of their GDP [Gross Domestic Product] has to go paying the interest... So part of the protest was the cancellation of third-world debt."

"Our goal was not to shut these organizations down," Lachman said. "They can be amazing vehicles for reform and aid to these countries, but they need more involvement of the people who are affected. They can’t be funded by individuals who are interested in their own gain and corporate wealth."

While the IMF and World Bank meetings have been an annual occurrence for more than two decades, this is the first year they have been singled out as a point of action by so many activists. Many students feel that Wesleyan’s strong involvement this past weekend is related to the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle over Thanksgiving.

"I think Seattle and Washington [D.C.] are part of a new movement to make government more accountable and reclaim our democracy," said Melanie Grubman ’00, one of the protest organizers who was also in Seattle in November. "I think these protests are a way of perpetuating it and getting everyone together... We’re working and having fun and I think that’s the most important thing of the protests."

Although many participants said they had intended Saturday for organizational purposes, more than 500 arrests, among them two Wesleyan students, interrupted the scheduled events.

Joshua Kagan ’01 said he and a friend were trapped without warning behind a police barricade with a group of 500 other people before being placed under arrest. Kagan said he had traveled to Washington in order to make a documentary film of the protest.

"We went in and started taking pictures and the police barricaded it and didn’t allow anyone to leave," Kagan said. "The protesters started chanting into their bullhorns, ‘what are we doing wrong? why won’t you let us leave?’... but they arrested every person there including 80 year old women, without even giving us our rights."

"I hadn’t even gone through training because I wasn’t really a protester, I was just making a film," Kagan added.

Other students who weren’t arrested were forced to reorganize both plans and locations when Police shut down two convergence centers where protesters were holding training and information sessions.

Although the police said that it was because of a fire, some students feel that it was just an excuse to obstruct the protesters’ activities.

"It’s a load of bullshit," said Jane Lewis ’03. "They claim that they found materials used to make pepper spray, but they really just found pepper."

"It was a little chaotic," said Dan Firger ’01 who also participated in the protest. "People had to find new places for everything, but people were amazing in getting back from this setback and moving forward."

On Sunday, which many students said they felt was the most important day of action, the city of Washington was divided into 12 sections, with the IMF building in the center. All
Wesleyan students were assigned to section ‘E,’ a youth ‘cluster’ with a number of students from other colleges.

"We were in a crucial area because we were so near the IMF [building] entrance," Firger said. "We were responsible for blocking any delegates to the building, and we were one of three intersections that actually had physical lockdowns, so it was pretty hard core in terms of being serious about putting our bodies on the line."

Although no more Wesleyan students were arrested, section E was involved in a brief skirmish with the police in which two students received broken noses.

"There were instances of irrational and brutal police policy, like motorcycles running over people," Lachman said. "[The police] didn’t use order to respond, they used their own
judgement, and I think it was almost out of frustration and anger rather than a need to clear the intersection. With the attack on us, they weren’t coming to arrest us, they wanted to affect our mentality and our unity."

Despite the conflicts, many Wesleyan protesters said they believe they were able to uphold the protest’s non-violent intentions.

"I think for the most part [non-violence] was successful," Alcantara said. "And I like to think of this weekend as one action that’s part of a process, connecting to other actions in Seattle. It’s another step to a more responsible investment and action . It’s one event put in the context of a growing movement of demanding social reform."