Ottawa Correspondence

Ottawa Correspondence: Protesting the Bank in a Post 9/11 World

When terrorists crashed their hijacked planes and human cargo into the World Trade Center a great wave of consequences swept through the social and economic fabric of our inter-related world. Suddenly everything was different. Suddenly, the planned World Bank and IMF meetings and counter-summit by Anarchists and Social Libertarians was cancelled as people waited with fear as to what the outcome of the attacks would be. So it was with surprise when the IMF and World Bank announced a technical meeting would take place in Ottawa rather than in Washington, DC. Protestors hastily placed a call to action and people scrambled for contingencies in Ottawa. With my laptop in tow I headed up to Ottawa to see what the hastily convened conference and protests would result in.

Ottawa is an isolated city in comparison to our own capital, Washington, D.C. Absent are the gleaming white marble halls, monuments and vestibules, instead there are grey stone buildings which appear to be transplanted from middle France in this French quarter of the province of Ontario. The city itself is split down the middle by a large canal. The meetings taking place inside the Chateau Laurier, a high society hotel across from the Government Conference Center. Over three days of the actual meetings there will be protests and actions aimed at sending the message that the world is not comfortable with the IMF and World Bank meeting in secrecy.

Day 1, Nov. 16th:
As I talked to many Canadian activists before the protests they spoke about how they where concerned about their ability to have free speech and to protest with new security laws being put in place. Their fears where somewhat confirmed when the previous night to the protests four plain clothes policeman visited the site that the Independent Media Centre (http://ontario.indymedia.org) had been meeting. When I spoke with the host of the IMC meeting he appeared somewhat disturbed that they had chosen him as an focus of an investigation into protestors plans as a reporter with the IMC he had no protest information, merely was a reporter. "They asked me what the protestors where planning, who was involved with the IMC and who was involved". The next day the police visit to a media group would proove to be foreshadowing.

As has been the tradition of most anti-Globalization protests the first day is a day of marching. As the world’s finance ministers from the world’s 20 most developed economies meet inside the Conference Center the radical anarchists, socialists and social libertarians have called for a militant snake march through the streets of Ottawa. Anarchists dressed in black, with baclavas, helmets, gas masks and "smash the state" banners took to the streets in a game of cat and mouse as the protestors tried to out maneuver the police in an unpermitted march through the city streets. The police dressed in full riot gear, armed with CS Gas rifles, guard dogs, MP-5 semi-automatic rifles, bean bag shotguns, and various sundried chemical irritants manned road blocks to channel the march along a controlled path. The march began just outside the University of Ottawa in a student section of town not unlike the UC area of Cincinnati, your typical collegiate shopping and café district. About 500 "black bloc" activists and self-proclaimed "anarchists" snaked down the streets. As they came closer to the actual Conference Center where that day the G-20 was meeting the pitch grew higher as teenage anarchists put on their gas masks their small frames listing under the weight of shielding and gas masks that looked oversize for their youthful red cheeked faces. As one looks at these kids one is half-humored and half-scared. There counter poised policeman tower over them with middle aged male bodies conditioned by years of military training and weight lifting. Yet the police choose to drop back to a safe position behind the hastily erected police barriers two lines deep. The protestors rush the first line of barriers dismantling the barriers. They quickly tighten up as their loose configuration becomes a tight nucleus then they begin to move on the next line of barriers as the police hastily put on their gas masks preparing for a physical confrontation. Just as soft youthful bodies are about to meet the police heavies the pagans begin a drum circle and the kids back off and begin dancing in circles to the beating african rhythms that fill the air and the order to "stand down" is given to the police. Suddenly stiff muscular bodes cluching shields and rifles have shoulders relaxed and look on with small grins.
These types of Snake Marches can take unpredictable turns. After several minutes of dancing again we where on the move. As we crossed a shopping district a McDonald’s was spotted. In a barage of rocks and steel pipes the loud crashing noise of glass rocked around me as to my left and right windows broke out as "anarchists" claimed another Mickey D’s store front as part of their war against corporate rule in the world. Shortly thereafter an IMC videographer was singled out as dogs and police entered the crowd and dragged the videographer to the ground arresting him. And one ponders why the IMC is the object of police harrasment? Thereafter the march dissassembled as the energy of the march dissipated into a slow walk past the Parliament building ending at the supereme court.
What is all this commotion about anyway, One would ask when seeing the surreal scenes of cops attacking kids and kids attacking McDonald’s. The G-20 that was meeting while the "anarchists" reveled through the streets was making plans for ending "terrorist" financing. But as would be heard throughout the weekend the protestors considered the G-20/WB/IMF as the terrorists. Protestors point out that millions are affected by Bankers and Financiers decisions leaving many in hunger and poor throughout the world:

"We are here to protest the impact of globalization on this country, we are not just here for the people in the south, but also to support the people in our own society. That suffering is caused by the same forces that are destroying people in the South." -- Josephine Gray, National Anti-Poverty Organization

Saturday, Nov. 17th
On Saturday two messages would be heard on the one hand would be the IMF calling for "social justice" and on the other hand the protestors would be calling for "social justice".
The day began innocently enough as thousands gathered to march to the Supreme Court for a rally where speakers would be heard calling for the abolition of Structural Adjustment Programs of the IMF which open the gateway to the privatization of public sector activities such as water in Bolivia at the behest of Bechtel corporation as Bolivia tries to meet the conditions laid on it by the loans of the WB/IMF. The protestors where initially prevented from marching across the canal unless each person, out of several thousand consented to a search. The protestors rebuffed this attempt by marching around the barricades until finding a lightly guarded bridge to cross on their way to the Supreme Court. At the court a spirited rally was held. From this point a two pronged march would go to the Conference center in an attempt at disrupting the meetings.
At the Conference center another conflict ensued as protestors pushed through the first line of barricades only to have a stand off with the guards. A protestors climbed a light pole overlooking the police lines erecting socialist, anarchist and pagan flags declaring "Freedom". As a group of baclava clad protestors hoisted a barricade at the police line a tear gas cannister went off. The protestors backed off then regrouped and pushed toward the barricades again. Another group of protestors tied a rope to the barricades pulling the barricades apart. Ten yards away, a RCMP officer began shooting off round after round of plastic bullets at the legs of the barricade busters until they gave up. The protest reached a peaceful level as many in the crowd called for everyone to be peaceful. The protestors stared at the police, the police stared at the protestors. A woman with a megaphone told everyone why they where there:
"The World Bank is hurting millions of people through Structural Adjustment Programs."
This continued for a couple of hours. As I returned to the Media Center I heard of reports of a woman with a broken ankle due to a rubber bullet. Several protestors where attacked by police dogs, and their were cases of hypothermia after police used a high pressure water hose on protestors in freezing weather, and over 50 were arrested.
As surreal as the days events were they were accentuated by the site one sees as one enters the offical press center at the offical conference site. Inside reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, feast on the catered food provided by the IMF/WB and snicker at the protestors on the television monitors. I had entered the center to cover the press conference of the IMFC (http://wwwcan.activate.net/g20/011117/imf_index.htm). As Gordon Brown and Hernst Koehler of the IMF gave dry answers to dry technical questions about financing. In what seemed like a sound bite from a protester except spoken by Gordon Brown under the stage lighting behind a skirted table dressed in a suit with the full weight of a U.K. Government portfolio said:

"The real issue isn’t whether your for or against globalization, because globalization is moving forward the real issue is whether or not your for social justice on a global scale and I believe there is an increasing recognition that we got to work together to make the world and the global economy a better place for the poor in the world."

Which raises the question why are the protestors protesting and what are the governments supressing dissent if everyone sounds alike?

Spinning the Same Lines?
On Sunday morning the headlines of the newspapers in Ottawa where not about Gordon Brown,the IMF or even the war waging in Afghanistan The Sun showed a protestor being dragged away as he tried to deliver a set of demands to the IMF/WB inside the secure Conference center. The demands listed where: 1) cancel all impoverished country debt to the IMF/WB using the insitutions own resources (money); 2) Open all meetings to the media and the public, media are not allowed into the meetings, finances are kept secret 3) end all IMF/WB policies that hinder access to food, healthcare and so called Structural Adjustment Programs, including privatization; 4) end all WB support for environmentally destructive policies, including the displacement of people. Inside the Conference center on Sunday, a brief press conference would be given by the President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn.
As we all sat in the same hall that yesterday Gordon Brown had given his stirring soundbite. I waited patiently for my turn to ask a simple question: "Everywhere the IMF/WB go there are street protests. Does the IMF/WB see the protests as a positive influence or a destructive influence on the process of debt relief?". Mr. Wolfensohn has the demeanor of a benevolent grandfather waiting for his time to go to the country club as he enters the twilight of life. He is an amicable person with a dry wit. So it was not unsuprising that he replied:

"…I would expect that there will always be pressure from civil society to increase debt relief at whatever level we take unttil it is completely exposed I just remind that the debt relief porograms where invented by the bank before there were protests…I don’t mind the tension or the debate but I prefer to have it as debate rather than as street protests, because I think it is pointless and has no effect." (http://wwwcan.activate.net/g20/011118/worldbank_index.htm)

As "pointless" and "inneffective" the protestors appear to be in the mind of Mr. Wolfensohn one cannot ignore their impact as they partially managed to cancel the annual meetings in Washington, DC. Or the massive protests in Prague last September or the shut down of downtown DC during the last WB/IMF annual meeting. Or going back again to Gordon Brown:

"There is a recognition that the problems of globalization that have been raised with us by large numbers of people in poverty can only be dealt with by strengthening our international financial institutions….and when I talk about a new deal between the developed and newly developing countries a new consensus has developed around trade, investement and increased development aid among developed countries…what happens in rich countries affects poor countries…".

David Levy of the Washington based Mobilization for Global Justice, noting the call for a dialogue with protestors from the World Bank, said:
"we have had an impact the fact that they have changed their rhetoric, ‘how free trade will reduce poverty’, their concentrating again on the issue of poverty…. The IMF/WB knew what they were doing, they called the meeting on very short notice, they didn’t want to see the level of protest that they would have seen in DC"

As for the anarchists, Chuck0 the editor of the Abolish the Bank (http://www.abolishthebank.org) comments directly on Wolfensohns remarks:

"Wolfensohn may think that this is some kind of game, but the World Bank
and IMF are literally killing people. If the World Bank and IMF won't
even consider the reasonable reforms that have been demanded by millions
of people, then the only option left is to dismantle these two
institutions before they kill again"

The final note of the meeting was the announcement that the next IMF/WB meeting will be held in April in Washington, DC. As can be expected the same lines will be spun by the same people and the protests will go on because as the IMF notes, globalization continues. And Sasha says, "God Bless God".