The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank held two high-level meetings over the weekend of November 16-18 in Ottawa. These were the remnants of the cancelled joint annual meetings of the institutions, scheduled for the end of September in Washington. The two re-scheduled sessions were those which normally take place every 6 months (April and September/October) to legitimize the conduct of the institutions. One, the International Monetary and Financial Committee — the meeting which was the target of the large protests in Washington on April 16, 2000 (and has been many times before and since) — is the highest-level regularly-scheduled meeting of global economic decision-makers, and is the official policy-making body of the IMF. The other, the Joint Development Committee (often referred to as a World Bank body), has some overlapping membership, and is supposed to give direction on issues pertaining to development in impoverished countries.

The IMF and World Bank met right after the meetings of the “Group of 20,” a gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 7 major industrialized countries, the European Union, and 12 “emerging market” countries, which, altogether, constitute roughly 90% of the world economy. This meeting of the G-20, the third annual one, was scheduled for New Delhi, but relocated either because the Indians didn’t want to deal with security concerns, or finance ministers, unlike the trade ministers who met a week earlier in Qatar at the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit, are afraid of flying into a war zone.

Unofficial Events

The days preceding the official meetings featured press conferences focusing on issues such as the four demands of the IMF and World Bank, endorsed by over 200 organizations worldwide, which were originally promoted for the Washington meetings: 1) cancel impoverished country debt; 2) end structural adjustment programs; 3) stop support for environmentally and socially devastating projects; and 4) open the decision-making meetings of the institutions to the media and the public. Another focus was the denunciation of the World Bank’s cynical response to these demands, which included a plea for more “dialogue” (see article on page 4). Campaigners who have tried to engage the World Bank in joint exercises (such as the World Commission on Dams and the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative) condemned the Bank’s use of such exercises for public relations, its refusal to take the process or conclusions seriously, and its failure to keep its promises.

Five hundred people attended a teach-in sponsored by the Council of Canadians, the Halifax Initiative, and the International Forum on Globalization on the evening of Friday, November 16. The enthusiastic audience heard from Lidy Nacpil of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (Philippines), Alejandro Bendaña of Jubilee South and the Center for International Studies (Nicaragua), and Oronto Douglas of Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria). Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians gave an entertaining — and alarming — report on the Qatar meeting of the WTO, from which she had just returned.

During the day Friday there were marches by activists around Ottawa in advance of the main day of protests. Windows were broken at two McDonalds restaurants in downtown Ottawa, but at the end of the day the police chief thanked the demonstrators for their good behavior.

As the main session of the G-20 got underway on Saturday morning, demonstrators started gathering at several different points in Ottawa. After a few quick speeches, protesters started toward the Supreme Court building. While the Ottawa police chief’s words were conciliatory, the behavior of Ottawa police was inexplicably confrontational. They attempted to divide the marches wading into the middle and creating a human barrier. The marchers refused to be separated, and the police eventually relented. At one point, the police took the unusual step of standing in the path of the march, riot shields up, motionless, in a staggered formation, forcing protesters to weave their way around the living statues to continue. On either side were police dogs yowling and snapping; they would later bite several protesters and attract much criticism from media commentators.

As the various marches converged at the Supreme Court, the crowd of about 4000 people remained high-spirited throughout a rally with music and animated and provocative speakers. After the rally, most of the demonstrators headed to the barricades set up a couple blocks away outside the site of the conference. Some demonstrators tried to overturn barricades, and police responded with tear gas and water hoses (not pleasant in 7-degree-celsius/40-degree-farenheit weather). All told, about a dozen people were arrested on Saturday.

The protests demonstrated the continuing strength and unity of the movement for global justice. Activists made clear that the movement will not be silent because of the September 11th events, especially when the politically and economically powerful are exploiting the public’s response to the terrorist attacks in order to further secure the neo-liberal “free trade” agenda. The results of both Qatar and Ottawa are mixed in that regard: the big victories that some corporate and government officials thought attainable were averted, but neither was there a resounding repudiation of their agenda.

The Official Meetings

The Canadian Finance Minister, Paul Martin, repeated his call for more substantial debt cancellation. Gordon Brown of the U.K. spoke favorably of debt “standstills” — moratoria on debt payments when countries hit the skids, until rescheduling is arranged. Brown also asserted that there is increasing support for coming up with some sort of bankruptcy status for severely indebted countries: a system of arbitration to impose a final reckoning on creditors and restore the country to square one. This would be a significant step, but the idea was expressed in generalities and not picked up by others at the meeting. Brown’s contention was borne out, however, when IMF Deputy Managing Director Anne Krueger announced her institution’s interest in such a plan a week later in Washington. Krueger’s surprise statement was taken as a hopeful sign by some. Others, however, warn that the IMF may be trying to claim ownership of the idea (which has been around for years), which would be disastrous as it would make the Fund, already determined to use every possible opportunity to impose structural adjustment policies, into both a lender and an arbitrator.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan attended the meetings, ostensibly to support new proposals for “financing for development,” the topic of the next big UN summit (in Monterey, Mexico in March). The ministers assembled merely asserted the need for the summit to be sure that all the aid it talks about adheres to “sound economic policies” (i.e., structural adjustment).

The IMF and World Bank have just announced that they are planning their Spring Meetings for Washington, between April 13 and April 16. The announcement was delayed for several weeks, perhaps because of on-going security concerns. Many have recommended that the Bank simply re-locate their meetings outside the city in order to reduce the costs and visibility. At any rate, because the Spring Meetings are small, re-scheduling or re-location remains a possibility.