Call for a Mass Mobilization during the 2005 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund April 15-17th, Washington DC. The main action will be April 16.The 2005 meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank will represent the five year anniversary of the first major demonstrations against these institutions in the United States. Again we will gather in the streets of D.C. on A16 to show that our resistance to these institutions and their greed only grows stronger, and that our dreams for a better world are not only possible, but under construction at this moment, in all corners of the globe. The IMF and World Bank, with all their efforts to demolish these dreams and actions, can never stop us.

The World Bank claims to combat world poverty. The IMF claims to promote global economic stability. For the 60 years of their existence, they have done neither. The World Bank has poured billions into dams, mining, and other projects that have caused immense social and environmental destruction, displacing poor, often indigenous, people from their lands and livelihoods, and destroying fragile ecosystems. The IMF has destabilized the economies of countries like Korea, Thailand, and Argentina, creating mass unemployment. Together, the IMF and World Bank have trapped poor countries in a cycle of unpayable debt. To extract debt repayment from them, they have imposed conditions such as budget caps, user fees for health care, and privatization of water. These policies have impoverished billions. They have also corroded self-determination and corrupted political systems, making governments accountable to foreign creditors rather than their own people.

Instead of building the world that they have promised, the World Bank and IMF have plunged it into a global crisis that is now more urgent than ever. The number of people in abject poverty worldwide is at an all-time high, and more and more people lack access to water, healthcare, and education.The world is headed for environmental disaster, while the World Bank pours17 times more funds into fossil fuel projects than for renewables and energy efficiency. The global AIDS epidemic takes 7,000 lives in Africa every day. According to the United Nations, 30,000 people worldwide die every day as a direct consequence of IMF and World Bank-imposed cuts in social services.

Today, South and Southeast Asia is facing an immense natural disaster, and the enormous debt burden of these countries, as well as restrictive conditions on World Bank loans for reconstruction, are going to prevent full recovery. Already, the Sri Lanka government and the World Bank are colluding to use this disaster as an opportunity to displace fishing communities and privatize the coastline for the benefit of the tourism industry.

Over the 60 years of their existence, the IMF and World Bank have systematically enriched multinational corporate interests at the expense of nature and of the rest of humanity. It's time to demolish these institutions and build a better world. Each day people around the world people are coming together to construct a better, more just world. Not only are they demonstrating in the streets, but they are actively reclaiming their communities. In South Africa, citizens too poor to afford the privatized water have dismantled water meters and learned plumbing to connect homes to water services.

In Argentina unemployed workers are taking over their former workplaces and running them as collectives. People throughout the Global South are working to take back their rights to water, health, land, a clean environment, and self-determination. Five years after thousands came to Washington DC in the first mass show in the U.S. of solidarity with the global struggle against the World Bank and IMF, the Mobilization for Global Justice is calling for people to come to Washington DC April 15-17th, to protest the institutions during their spring meetings and to celebrate the other, more just world that is under construction due to the resistance of millions worldwide!

For more Information: www.globalizethis.org or [email protected] The Mobilization for Global Justice is committed to making all events safe spaces that are open, accessible, and accepting of all. We welcome everyone to participate in making this happen. If you have any special needs, please let us know.