Lalit join the call for the International Days of Action Against the IMF & the World Bank: April 16–25, 2004
11.04.2004
In its last meeting Lalit endorsed the call for International Days of Actions against the IMF/WB, circulated by the 50 Years is Enough Network.
Lalit invites other progressive organisations to join-in and endorse the Call to Action.
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Call to Action for Mobilization
April 21- 25 in Washington DC,
2004 is:
- the 60th anniversary of the founding of the world Bank and the IMF;
- the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the 50 Years is Enough Network campaign;
- a U.S. Presidential election year; and
- a crucial year for the struggles for global justice
For six decades, the World Bank and the IMF have imposed policies, programs, and projects that:
- Decimate women's rights and devastate their lives, their families, and their communities
- Subjugate democratic governance and accountability to corporate profits and investment portfolios;
- Trap countries in a cycle of indebtedness and economic domination;
- Force governments to privatize essential services
- Put profits before people's rights and needs
- Abet the devastation of the environment in the name of development and profit;
- Institutionalize the domination of the wealthy over the impoverished - the new form of colonialism; and
- Facilitate corporate agendas through the economic re-structuring of countries enduring conflict and occupation, such as East Timor, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
In the 60th anniversary year of the IMF and World Bank, we demand the following measures from the institutions and the government which control them. Add your voice by endorsing these demands:
- Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the medias and the public;
- Cancel all impoverished country debt to the world Bank and IMF, using the institutions' own resources
- End all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to organize. )such "structural adjustment" policies include user fees, privatisation and economic austerity programs)
- Stop all World Bank support for socially and environmentally destructive projects such as oil, gas and mining activities, and all support for projects such as dams that include forced relocation of people.
We furthermore recognize the urgency of the world's most catastrophic health crisis, the HIV/AIDS pandemic. We assert the culpability of the international financial institutions in declining health care systems of Global South countries, reject the approach of fighting the pandemic with more loans and conditions from these institutions. We call on the world's governments to best deploy their resources by fully funding the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. We demand the elimination of trade rules that undermine access to affordable life-saving medications.
Help end global economic injustice driven by the policies, projects and programs of the international financial institutions!
Educate, Organize, Mobilise!
Be the Change you want the see in our world!
Endorse the Demands
Visit www.50years.org
Email: info@50years.org
Tel: 202/463-2265 for details and update
