RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

Flush with the lion’s share of the $1.1trillion pledged by G20 to combat the the economic crisis (SchNEWS 671), the IMF and the World Bank met in Washington last week for their annual get together. The meeting sparked three days of protest by activists less than convinced that the IMF - with its history of disastrous economic interventions - could be trusted to do anything but exacerbate the crisis.

Protests began on Friday (24th) with a ‘Run on the Bank’ as activists staged a five kilometre ‘fun’ run from Malcolm X Park to the World Bank HQ. Activities continued on the Saturday with a ‘Peoples Economic Forum’ held against the backdrop of street protests which, although small scale, were met with large scale violence from the police.

Amid the pepper spray and baton beatings there were a number of arrests with one detainee claiming police threatened to insert things up his rear end using ‘peanut butter and motor oil as lube’. Before the main protests began two banks were vandalised and had their windows smashed causing an estimated $110,000 of damage and leading to six arrests. Further, smaller protests took place on Sunday and passed without incident.