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STORM OVER PRAGUE
By Roger Burbach

The demonstrations in Prague against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were another landmark in the gathering popular storm against the policies and practices of the institutions that dominate the globalization process. As in previous protests, pitched confrontations took place between demonstrators and the police. Many IMF and World Bank delegates found it difficult or impossible to get to the official meetings, and the conference was adjourned early. The storefronts of a few corporate icons, like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Mercedes Benz, were smashed. But most demonstrators opposed property destruction as well as physical violence, declaring that their objective was the use of civil disobedience to stop \"business as usual\" by the World Bank and the IMF.

The attached essay \"Millennial Cracks\" discusses the rise of this global insurgent movement. It is the epilogue of a soon to be released book: Globalization and Postmodern Politics: From Zapatistas to High Tech Robber Barons.
September 2000 has proved to be a particularly propitious month for this new protest movement against corporate driven globalization. It began with the United Nations Millennial Summit in New York City called by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to advance globalization and to give the stamp of approval to collaborationist efforts between the United Nations and multinational corporations. The UN meetings drew protestors from organizations as diverse as the Direct Action Network, ACT-UP, Food Not Bombs, the International Forum on Globalization, and the Jubilee 2000 Campaign. Even many world leaders who spoke at the summit were critical of the maldistribution of wealth that has come with globalization.
The global expanse of the new protest movement was illustrated the following week when militant demonstrators disrupted the meetings of corporate executives, central bankers, and their political allies at the World Economic Forum in Melbourne Australia. Described as \"Seattle without the tear gas,\" the demonstrators were beaten and run over by Australian police as they tried to block the access routes to the meetings. The prime minister of Australia had to arrive at the WEF assembly by boat as the street routes were obstructed, while Bill Gates, the icon of high tech globalization, could not get to special meetings set up to hawk his wares. Gates--the richest man in the world whose company has been convicted of monopolistic profiteering--was indignant, declaring that if globalization is blocked, \"the big losers will be the poor people of the world.\"
These are tumultuous times. It is impossible to predict the future of the new worldwide movement against globalization. Clearly in the ten months since Seattle, the monied interests and the dominant powers that are driving the globalization process are facing an intense challenge from the grass roots that is even causing dissension within the ranks of the elites.
Fearful of the Prague protests and the anti-corporate global movement, World Bank and IMF officials had already proclaimed before the meetings that they would double the number of poorest countries receiving debt relief by the end of the year, from ten to twenty! Like all \"reforms\" endorsed by the dominant economic interests, however, these changes will do little to foster any real improvement in the lives of the vast majority of the world