[요약] 

반세계화 시위대, IMF-세계은행 회의 반대 행진
4월 13일(일) AFP통신

워싱턴 - 세계은행과 국제통화기금 간 연차 봄 회의에 대응하기 위해 수백 명
의 반세계화 시위자들이 워싱턴 거리에 나섰다. 

"대중과 언론에게 회의를 공개하라"라고 케냐의 은조키 은제후가 요구했
다. "너희들은 외채를 지배와 통제의 무기로 계속 사용하고 있다"
IMF와 세계은행이 이라크의 1,270천억 달러 외채를 탕감하라는 요청에 대해 논
의하고 있을 때, 다른 나라들은 "독재자들이 물러준" 외채에 허덕이고 있다고 
브라질, 아르헨티나와 칠레를 지칭하며 은제후가 말했다. 
시위대는 탈규제화, 국제 대부 방식과 IMF의 구조조정포로그램이 가난한 나라
들로 하여금 영구적인 외채 의존과 후퇴 속에 갇히게 하고 있다고 주장했다. 
반세계화 시위대는 일요일 시위에서 평화활동가들과 손을 잡았으며, 일요일 시
위는 남아메리카에 대한 미국의 군사적 개입과 경제적 착취에 초점을 맞췄다. 
"다 같은 것이다. 군사적, 경제적 제국주의 둘 다에 대한 반대이다"라고 한 시
위자 수 다니엘즈가 말했다. 
남아메리카연대동맹((LASC)은 타코벨과 옥시덴탈페트롤리윰을 지나는 행진을 
조직했으며, 이들 기업이 기타 초국적기업들과 함께 비인간적인 노동조건을 추
진하고 노조를 분쇄하기 위한 준군사조직과 협력하고 있다고 했다. 
플로리다에서 토마토 수확자(picker)로 일하는 로메오 라미레즈는 페스트푸드
체인 타코벨에 대한 보이콧을 주장하는 여러 시위자 중 한 명이었다. 타코벨
은 거대 농기업으로부터 토마토를 사고 있는데, 이 농기업들은 수확자들에게 
지난 20년 간 변함이 없는 임금을 지불하고 있다. 
LASC의 반세계화 행동은 FTAA에 대한 반대이다. 활동가들은 FTAA가 오직 미국
만 이득을 보는 불공평한 무역 체제를 강화하고 있다고 한다. 

=======================
[기사원문]

Anti-globalization protesters march on IMF-World Bank meeting
Sun Apr 13, 7:06 PM ET  Add U.S. National - AFP to My Yahoo! 
 
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Several hundred anti-globalization protesters took to 
the streets of Washington to confront the annual spring meeting of the 
World Bank (news - web sites) and International Monetary Fund (news - 
web sites) (IMF). 

"Open your meetings to the public and to the media," demanded speaker 
Njoki Njehu of Kenya. "You continue to use debt as a tool of domination 
and control." 

While the IMF and World Bank were discussing calls to write off post-war 
Iraq (news - web sites)'s debt of 127 billion dollars, other countries 
are staggering under debts "passed on by dictators," Njehu said, 
pointing to Brazil, Argentina and Chile. 

The organizers charge that deregulation, international lending practices 
and the IMF's structural adjustment programs increase poverty by 
trapping poor countries in a perpetual cycle of debt dependence and 
backwardness. 

A seven-year initiative to cut the debt of the poorest countries has so 
far agreed on relief amounting to 40 billion dollars in 26 countries, 
the World Bank said Sunday. 

The anti-globalization movement joined forces with peace activists for 
Sunday's protest, which highlighted US military intervention as well as 
economic exploitation in Latin America. 

"It's all the same, it's opposition to both military and economic 
imperialism," said protester Sue Daniels. 

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) charted a route past the 
offices of Taco Bell and Occidental Petroleum, accused with other trans-
national corporations of promoting inhumane labor conditions and 
collaborating with paramilitary forces seeking to bust unions. 

Romeo Ramirez, a tomato picker in Florida, was among many protesters 
calling for a boycott of the fast-food chain Taco Bell, which buys 
tomatoes from agribusinesses that pay pickers by the bucket at a rate 
that has not changed in 20 years. 

"Consumers are beginning to realize why Taco Bell's food is so cheap," 
Ramirez said. "Now students don't want fast food, they want fair food." 

The marchers' "tour of shame" also took them past the US Trade 
Representative and the Inter-American Development Bank, both accused of 
perpetuating policies that hurt poor countries. 

A central plank of the LASC's anti-globalization action is opposition to 
the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which activists say reinforces 
unfair trade advantages enjoyed by the United States. 

LASC is also fighting for the closure of a school run by the US military 
in Fort Benning, Georgia, which is accused of teaching repressive 
techniques, including torture, to military students attending from Latin 
American countries. 

Congress voted to shut down the School of the Americas in 2000, but it 
immediately reopened at the same site under a new name, the Western 
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). 

Several of the marchers had served jail terms or were facing prison for 
taking part in protests held every November at WHISC, which activist 
Charity Ryerson described as "the enforcing wing of the IMF and the 
World Bank." 

She charged that WHISC graduates carried out brutal "social cleansing" 
operations to quell grassroots activism in Colombia. 

"We need monitoring of all military training," Ryerson said. "The first 
terrorism that we must fight is the terrorism we promote in our own 
country." 

John Smihula, who directed and produced a just-released documentary 
about the WHISC entitled "Hidden in Plain Sight," told AFP: "In every 
Latin American nation to some extent in the last 50 years, we've been 
involved in all sorts of atrocities, human rights abuses, 
disappearances. 

"The United States has been deeply involved in the affairs of Latin 
America for a very long time, and most US citizens know very little 
about this," he said.