The 50 Years Is Enough Network made it a priority to ensure that a number of activists came to Washington from the countries that suffer most under the World Bank and IMF.  Several were members of our South Council, an advisory body we set up last year to formalize input from our Southern partners. We facilitated, in one way or another (including funding eight round-trip air tickets), the visits of the following people (asterisks indicate South Council members):

• Walden Bello* and Nicola Bullard* (Thailand) of Focus on the Global South
  
  
• Patrick Bond* (South Africa), a professor at the University of Witwatersrand
  
  
• Camille Chalmers* (Haiti) of the Haitian Popular Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA)
  
  
• Molly Dhlamini (South Africa), a youth and women‚s activist
  Olga Félix (Haiti) of the Haitian Women‚s Solidarity Organization (SOFA)
  
  
• Jonah Gokova* (Zimbabwe) of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development and Ecumenical Support Services
  
  
• Vineeta Gupta* (India) of INSAAF International
  
  
• Georgine Kengne* (Cameroon) of Ecumenical Service for Peace
  
  
• Eun-ji Kim (South Korea) of the Korean House of International Solidarity
  
  
• Changgeun Lee (South Korea) of Korean People‚s Action Against Investment Treaties
  
  
• Davie Malungisa (Zimbabwe) of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development
  
  
• Trevor Ngwane (South Africa), a city council member in  Johannesburg/Soweto
  
  
• Maitet Pascual* (Philippines), President of the Freedom from Debt Coalition
  
  
• Shelly Rao (Fiji) of Jubilee 2000 Asia-Pacific

  These individuals participated in a broad range of the activities that made up the Mobilization for Global Justice.  Many of them spoke as part of a panel on the evening of Thursday, April 13 called "Voices in Struggle From the Global South," which attracted about 200 people.  Several participated in a press conference on Monday, April 10 to officially launch the campaign to boycott World Bank bonds, and in an action at the home of World Bank President James Wolfensohn (see the full account in this issue of Economic Justice News).  The daily workshops on the basics of the IMF and World Bank benefited from the leadership of people who deal first-hand with structural adjustment and related conditions imposed by the IMF and World Bank. 

  A few other highlights: Walden Bello was one of the attractions at the International Forum on Globalization, and he and 50 Years Is Enough Director Njoki Njehu debated IMF and World Bank the following day (Saturday, April 15).  On the same day, Patrick Bond and Molly Dhlamini ventured to the University of Delaware to address several hundred students who had gathered for the "Fight Back" conference organized by Young Democratic Socialists.  Jonah Gokova addressed a vigil outside the World Bank on Thursday, April 13, organized by the Center for International Environmental Law and others to commemorate the struggles of activists around the world working against Bank-financed large dams. 

  Trevor Ngwane had perhaps the busiest schedule.  Not only did he teach legions of North Americans to toyi-toyi (the distinctive dance and chant of Southern African liberation movements), but he was the subject of a documentary filmed for South African Broadcasting.  The film-makers followed him and the South African Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel (the film was thus called "The Two Trevors"), as they came to Washington for very different weeks on the same occasion.  Our Trevor emerged the star of the film as he critiqued not only Manuel‚s policies, but the effects of similar policies around the world.  He made a particular splash at events on Saturday, April 15 to support the immigrants in Washington facing imminent eviction from buildings in gentrifying neighborhoods which the city had abruptly condemned.