Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- [Via Communist Internet... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] [Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: SolidNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 7:18 PM Subject: CP USA, AFL-CIO call for D.C. march: 'Global justice' http://www.solidnet.org News, documents and calls for action from communist and workers' parties. The items are the responsibility of the authors. Join the mailing list: info/subscribe/unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] . ====================================================================================== ====================== CP USA, AFL-CIO call for D.C. march: 'Global justice' --------------------------------------------------- From : RedNet, Tue, 04 Sep 2001 http://www.cpusa.org , mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ====================================================================================== ======================= AFL-CIO call for D.C. march:'Global justice' By Tim Wheeler People's Weekly World The AFL-CIO blasted corporate globalism as a "system that values profits over people" last week and called on its members and allies to travel to the nation's capital Sept. 26-Oct. 1 for a "week of action for global justice." The protests, aimed at the fall meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), are expected to bring tens of thousands. Included in the activities will be a march and rally Sept. 30 demanding that Congress vote down "fast track" authority for George W. Bush as he tries to negotiate a new Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement. The march will also demand cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars in debts owed by the poorest nations to the World Bank and IMF. The AFL-CIO hailed the growing unity of the "international union movement, student organizations, women's groups, human rights advocates, faith-based activists, solidarity groups, immigrants, environmentalists, unemployed people, small farmers and business people" in the week of action. "The fall meeting of the IMF and World Bank will be among the most significant gatherings of the proponents and decision makers of corporate-led globalization in 2001," the AFL-CIO call continued. "We cannot stand by as these institutions continue to structure global economic rules for the benefit of corporations and the wealthy and deny justice to the majority of the world's people." The Bush administration has assigned the D.C. Metropolitan Police to block the protests. D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsay visited the White House to ask for $38 million to help transform the city into an armed camp. Ramsay has also requested thousands of police reinforcements from other cities. The police plan to erect a nine-foot chain link fence to keep the protesters out of eyesight of the World Bank/IMF parley. The meeting has been consolidated into a two-day meeting in response to the scheduled protests. The Global Justice Week of Action is one of several protests scheduled against the World Bank/IMF annual meeting. The Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ) and the International Action Center (IAC) are also planning their own week of separate, though overlapping, activities. The AGJ-IAC filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia Aug. 13 to block the D.C. police measures. "We believe the D.C. police are seeking to deny our clients' constitutionally protected right to assemble and their right to express their views," said attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, who filed the lawsuit seeking an injunction against the police plan. "Our lawsuit seeks to protect our clients' right to demonstrate on public sidewalks, public parks and public streets directly in front of the IMF/World Bank and directly in front of the White House." Verheyden-Hilliard rejected claims by police that the "violence" in Genoa, Italy, during the Group of Eight summit meeting last month, justifies the repressive measures. More than 100,000 protesters, overwhelmingly peaceful, demonstrated in the ancient city. "The violence in Genoa consisted of the police assassinating a demonstrator," she said. "It consisted of the police storming a building where demonstrators were sleeping and beating them unconscious." During demonstrations last fall at the IMF/World Bank meeting in D.C., she pointed out, more than 1,200 protesters were arrested. "And the police did not obtain a single conviction. It makes you question why the police were arresting so many people who were exercising their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble." The Independent Media Center (IMC) has been a special target for police repression, she added. "They stormed the IMC headquarters in Genoa and confiscated images of police agent provocateurs," she charged. Ramon Acevedo, outreach organizer for the Latin American Solidarity Conference (LASC), one of many groups participating in the protests, told the World, "They are trying to stop a worldwide movement. They are denying us our rights of free speech and assembly. We want to be as close as we can be to the IMF/World Bank meeting so that they can hear us." The LASC is also demanding termination of the Bush administration's "Plan Colombia," an end to the U.S. Navy bombing of Vieques and the closing of all U.S. military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean and the closing of the Fort Benning "School of Assassins." "All kinds of people are coming to this protest, including families, because families are being affected by these policies. Many immigrants want to come and they are not looking for a violent confrontation. We want this to be a peaceful protest," Acevedo added. "We are coming to demand an end to IMF/World Bank policies toward poor and developing countries. They are trying to demonize the protesters." The frenzied measures to block the protesters reflect the siege mentality of the corporate globalizers since massive street protests forced termination of the Nov. 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle. Last April, police encircled much of Quebec City with a chain link fence and brought in thousands of police to protect a top-level ministerial meeting to draft the FTAA agreement. The AFL-CIO statement accuses the IMF/World Bank of "forcing national 'structural adjustments' that include privatizing, downsizing and slashing spending by governments" as well as "recklessly opening trade doors to exploitive foreign investments." It decried the pressure exerted by the World Bank/IMF in the name of "labor flexibility" to reduce the minimum wage and weaken labor protections. Many impoverished nations "are spending more each year trying to repay loan debts to these institutions than are able to spend to meet the basic health, sanitation and education needs of their people." *End* ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
