APRIL ACTIONS AT IMF/WORLD BANK MEETING
WASHINGTON, DC

As in Seattle last December, the mid-April demonstrations in Washington, D.C., during the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, brought together a broad collection of activist constituencies, each with signs, chants, and targets of action linking their immediate concern to the far-reaching and invasive scourge of corporate globalization.

Preemptive raids and demonstrator round-ups by police forces added to civil resistance totals, resulting in about 1,300 arrests reported from April 12-17. Among the arrested were several anti-nuclear or anti-war affinity groups, pointing to the role of U.S. military muscle as ultimate enforcer of anti-democratic corporate globalization. A School of the Americas Watch cluster, including eight regional affinity groups, carried a large banner declaring "WTO, World Bank, IMF, School of the Americas - One Big Happy Family. Shut Them Down!"

Many of this group were among over 150 arrestees who engaged in jail solidarity for four or more days, enduring abuse from U.S. marshals yet refusing to identify themselves or post bond until charges for all were reduced to a $5 infraction with no criminal record. They were finally released Friday afternoon and evening. A similar deal was extended retroactively to 250 others who were released on a promise to return for trial. A handful of demonstrators facing felonies or serious misdemeanors were not included in the plea deal.

Authorities had encouraged many of those arrested to post a $50 forfeiture bond, acknowledging no guilt and eliminating the need to return for trial.

Also on Friday, April 21, the John Muir Democracy Brigade held a speak-out in the Capitol Rotunda. Celebrating the birthday of their namesake and Sierra Club founder, this Brigade (one of a series of Democracy Brigade actions seeking to extend First Amendment protection to the Capitol Rotunda) was a coalition including cross-country campaign finance reform walker Doris "Granny D" Haddock, and staff members of the Rainforest Action Network, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project, Ozone Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and many others. Thirty-two people were arrested and charged with demonstrating in the Rotunda as their speeches and banners addressed the manipulation of Congress by corporate campaign contributors at the expense of the environment.

In court May 24, all but two of the group pleaded guilty in the court of Judge Hamilton, chief judge of the D.C. Superior Court. Hamilton listened attentively to each of their statements, and then offered his own. He acknowledged that the U.S. political system is corrupted by money, and applauded the defendants as leaders in the effort to save democracy. He sentenced the group to the time served following their arrest - 4-5 hours - and only ordered a $10 fee each for the D.C. victim's compensation fund. Defendants Ronnie Dugger, founder of the Alliance for Democracy, and Gene Stilp, of Three Mile Island Alert, are challenging the charge and the constitutionality of the law prohibiting such nonviolent expressions of political opinion in the home of Congress. Their trial is set for September.