Activists of a campaign aimed at bankrupting the World Bank used the Bank's spring meetings in Washington last weekend to draw attention to the institution's alleged brutalising of Africa. They used the opportunity afforded by international media coverage to highlight their call for a boycott of the bonds that the World Bank issues on the private market. Sales of the AAA-rated bonds are the source of 80 per cent of the funds that the Bank uses for its programmes, according to the NGO coalition sponsoring the boycott campaign.