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Free Speech for the World Bank: Interview with Caroline Anstey
An interview with Caroline Anstey and a rant about "free speech" for the World Bank.
| World Bank in Prague: Riot police clamp a hand over the mouth of a protester they are arresting. |
Sympathy for the Devil
The World Bank has cancelled the 2001 Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) in Barcelona. The meeting will go on as scheduled for June 25-27, but will take place on the internet instead of Barcelona, where tens of thousands are expected to voice opposition to the World Bank and IMF.
Caroline Anstey, head of media relations and chief spokesperson for the World Bank, was outraged by the cancellation. "It is time to take a stand against this kind of threat to free discussion," she said. "Years ago people used to burn books to try and clamp down on academic freedom - now they try to prevent academics from reaching debating halls. This is hardly progress."
This proclamation from the World Bank confused many protesters who have eyewitness knowledge of brutal police repression of political demonstrations throughout the world recently. While tens of thousands are being beaten and gassed outside, are the World Bank members the real victims, being robbed of their right to free speech and open process?
The ABCDE conferences are one of the many contrived and exclusive ways through which the World Bank dialogues with civil society. Those invited to speak are CEOs, high-ranking World Bank and IMF officials, economists, parliament members, and professors. Out of 16 participants this year, only one is from an NGO (Global Witness), who was not invited to speak, but to participate in a panel. In an effort to demonstrate that World Bank "dialogues" are undemocratic and elitist, hundreds of thousands of people have decided to come to these meetings to participate and they\'ve been violently beaten for it.
Anstey says this is all wrong. She says that the World Bank encourages dialogue and welcomes political dissent. She also reiterates that it is a "small group" of protesters who are "violent," and create a situation where police have to plan elaborate security measures.
Excessive Force: "I\'m not aware of any."
Actually, Anstey is even against "excessive use of force" by police, but she doesn\'t think there has been any at recent protests against the World Bank. She admits that she has "never been on the frontlines," but insists that police are present to protect the World Bank and peaceful protesters alike. Anstey\'s view conflicts with eyewitness reports from thousands of people who have participated in demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF.
| World Bank in D.C.: Riot police beat peaceful protesters who are sitting down. |
In D.C., police raided and shut down a convergence center which was preparing food for out-of-town activists, days before the protests were to begin. Seventy men who were arrested issued a statement reporting violence and brutality against those arrested by police. Police riots continued to break out as cops indiscriminately beat citizens. Over 1,300 people were arrested in all. The DC police are now being sued for 169 individual acts of brutality during the A16 protests.
In Prague, permits were revoked, people were detained at the border and deported, and thousands reported unbelievable torture and abuse at the hands of Prague police.
As hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have continued to speak out against unaccountable institutions like the World Bank, police response has gotten progressively more militarized and violent. In February 2001, police murdered several indigenous activists in Ecuador who were participating in protests against an IMF economic package. Protests in Brazil were also marked by brutal police repression. In April, police in Quebec City used an unprecedented barrage of CS gas (banned by the Geneva Convention) against protesters and members of the community. No one was spared as gas-masked stormtroopers shut down medic centers, shot at videographers and journalists, and attacked with deadly force. A little over a month later, protesters against EU trade policies in Sweden were shot with live ammunition by rioting police who aggressively attacked a convergence center on horseback without provocation. Independent media carried it all live on streaming radio. Now, Europe is entering a summer of widespread protests at a climate conference, World Economic Forum meetings, a meeting of the G8, and other border-related actions.
"We are not world government!"
Ultimately, Anstey either really doesn\'t know or just doesn\'t care that while she and other official representatives are escorted by police guards, driven around in limosines, and catered to by a host city, tens of thousands of innocent people are being terrorized by government forces intent on intimidation, violence, and brutality. Anstey finally absolves the World Bank by declaring, "we are not the world government" --- the ultimate statement of unaccountability, where an institution which makes massive economic and social demands, enforced in day-to-day life by violent police squads, can throw up its hands because it has no control over local police forces. A dictatorship for the future, which doesn\'t even have a police force, but can somehow motivate massive military mobilizations against political dissenters.
Protesters, who are still planning on massive demonstrations in Barcelona, can only declare victory. One website announces that "J25 is our chance to make a massive, positive, international uprising that exemplifies and celebrates
the daily struggles through which we will realise a new society. Not a protest; an insurrection!" Even in the face of massive police terrorism, hundreds of thousands are refusing to be intimidated.
As the G8 meetings are quickly moved to an offshore warship, the legitimacy of the global elite and World Bank/IMF/WTO continues to dissolve. Increasingly, the power of these groups is secured only by their ability to terrorize the public. The World Bank\'s plea for "free speech" seems to be falling on deaf ears, as sympathy and commitment to the global movement against them grows.
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A most definite YES! The street thugs are trying to quash a free and democratic process, just like they always do.
Hint: The World Bank is not the Barcelona Police. Don't blame one for the actions of another.
heidi, it is too bad. the barcelona police WORK for the same people that the world bank works for. period. the same tactics used in san diego are being used in barcelona are being used in sweden are being used in quebec city are being used in guatemala. sorry, heidi. the "poor world bank" will have to find another forum (probably corporate media) to sing their sad song
I registered to participate in the World Bank online forum, which was set up after the Barcelona meetings
were cancelled. Supposedly this was to make it "democratic" in the face of "street thugs" who were
oppressing the world bank. I never received information about when, where or how to participate, even
though I registered several days ago. Upon returning to the site right now to register again, since the
conference is tomorrow, i got this message:
Thank you for your interest in ABCDE On Line.
We regret to inform you that our conference capacity has been reached.
However, the capacity may be increased, so please try again later.
If you are unable to register, you can return to the site following the web casts to watch all the conference
sessions as videos-on-demand.
Thank you for your patience.
so sit back and watch the videos of your leaders talking and hiding from the masses in barcelona. world
bank: your PR line does not work on a generation of revolutionaries who are way smarter than you are.
What I learn reading from Indymedia is that violence is the only acceptable method of dissent. Very few people on this website bother to explore the issues of the World Bank, and of macroeconomic in general.
Your opinions are all parroted from some maddening leader, just like the children listened to the Austrian corporal. They never asked why, they never tolerated any difference of opinion; they just went ahead with their policy. I was one of the children who asked, "why?" and life in Germany was then for me not easy. I lost some of my friends to people like you -- those who blindly follow and attack anything different. This is documented in George Orwell's "1984" as the "Two Minutes Hate" session.
Ironically, one posts, "dissent and free flow of information is dangerous to the world bank."
It appears more true for the groupthink spouting their programmed "Two Minutes Hate."
While it is true they are a thoughtless bunch of thugs, incapable of comprehending things like aggregate supply and balance of payments, you are on their turf pissing in their champagne.
please. you obviously don't understand capitalism and the opposition to it. they dont teach you anything about that when you go through a course in macro-economics, i guess.
1. the worldbank/imf exists to supply debt-ridden countries with more debt. this has translated into the rich northern countries (more notably, the G-7 and now the G-8) extracting more and more resources from poor southern countries, an imbalance which owes itself to colonialism over the past 500 years. what have YOU done lately to confront colonial ideas, colonial institutions, and colonial relationships in the world, heidi?
2. the use of structural adjustment programs as terms of debt restrictions is equivalent to a worldwide global banking elite taking over a country's government and making widespread social/economic decisions. this furthers the interests and hierarchal institutions of colonialism.
3. structural adjustment programs are working to privatize industries and social programs in direct opposition to public opinion. again. and again. and again. SAPs seem to coincide with NAFTA/FTAA/WTO goals. why is that, heidi?
4. world bank sponsored dam projects, road projects, etc routinely displace indigenous populations, leaving them homeless and more destitute than before.
5. the world bank's most liberal policies include giving lee-way to corrupt governments which are propped up by northern industrial countries in the G-8. these country's use the most brutal means possible to fulfill world bank requirements.
6. how many member countries limit their government's involvement to the finance ministry and central bank? how many governments allow their population to VOTE on world bank policies?
7. even in the united states and other supposed democracies, how many free trade policies are voted on by the public?
8. there is a long-running, international campaign for the world bank to drop the debt. it has been reported that the expenditures of administering and defending the world bank and imf could be used to pay off all debt. the world bank has watched idly as world governments use brutal force to suppress this movement. why, heidi?
9. caroline anstey's remarks indicate that she is ignorant of police brutality in protests against the world bank. so why is she broadcasting to the world that "violent protesters" are limiting the bank's free speech? her ignorance or complicit cover-up of police activities at least make the world bank press office guilty by association.
10. i am waiting for the world bank to condemn world governments for their brutal repression. they NEVER do.
so, anyway, heidi, i guess you will see now that people involved in this movement are not uneducated, as you condescendingly assume in your post accusing us of "hate" ... quite the opposite, as the world bank's clinical and PR-smoothed genocides become more and more known, the world bank will increasingly be seen as the institution of hate and brutality that it is.
heidi, with all of the world bank's theories about macroeconomics and debt management, why is it that the world bank has such a pathetic success record? i really doubt you were here to talk facts, more like stir up hate against protesters that will be used to justify their deaths when they are expressing free speech.
rule #1 why macroeconomics has such a hard time being multi-disciplinary: economists ignore anything which doesnt suit their own ideological bias. and, considering the demographic of economists, that would be drive to laissez-faire and take a hard right, towards economic policy executed with guns and private property as sacrosanct.
so, heidi, if you want to talk about dynamic ricardian models, maybe you should find some other rich people to sit around and make yourselves feel intellectual and important. we are here to stop the colonization of the globe by a psychotic insitution like world bank/imf.
i realize you will probably read this and assume that we are all still ignorant people ... hopefully you will find out soon that democracy is more important than your elite rich ideas, and the person who mows your lawn and drives your car knows 1000% more about how the world works than a room full of economists who have never worked a day in their life does.
signed,
A MACROECONOMIST CALLING FOR CLASS WAR NOW
By the way, I have about $850 million in high yield Brady Bonds to unload. See you in Argentina, and this time wave to them as they extend their middle finger. They do it because they love you, and they want the poor to have free medicine and a really good veggie burger made with the best TVP, none of that tofu crap.
If you ever intend to post on one of these things again, you need to be more vapid. That Orwell crack was out of line. Remember, they think we are cooperating with Big Brother, despite our not being socialists. I think I read your "Animal Farm" post too. Enough with the book reports, we got money to make, and a world to save.
By the way, that stochastic dynamic general equilibrium guy sounds like he stumbled across the Martingale Process Model that you screwed up. Remember that quant in Stockholm???
"Wealth maketh many friends, but the poor man is separated from his neighbour." --Proverbs 19
pssssssssssssssssss.
And it was not me that fucked up the martingale model. It was that jackass who couldn't get a grip on stochastic integrals, what's his name?
Before Argentina, we still got Belgium. And enough with that missugah Torah.
I think you got more than two minutes of hate. It's easier than actually explaining their objection on a rational level.
Remember, our financial engineering made it possible for these people to afford web-based relational databases across a fiber network and highly available cluster of servers to spread the message that we're the bad guys. Without us, they'd still be shivering in a cave or fighting off the plague (which I'm sure they blamed on us Jews).
Heidi and Ruth at it again. I guess those skinheads and anti-globalists are right -- there IS a Jewish banking conspiracy. It's so easy to say that in the luxury that capitalism alone can create.
I can't believe how educated you corporate fuck-puppets are and how superior you are to us mere mortals on the street. Did you actually *read* any of what's been written here? I think your attitude can be explained with reference to the principle of anal cranial insersion.
"Did Coca-Cola invent electricity?"
Actually no one invented electricity. It is a law of physics and has existed as long as the universe. It was DISCOVERED first (as far as we know) by the ancient egyptians (who used batteries and light bulbs). More recently it was rendered useful to humans by Nikola Tesla who invented Alternating Current (AC). This fact is generally not known as Tesla was an anti-capitalist whose vision was to use wireless delivery systems to provide free electrical energy to everyone.
"I think you got more than two minutes of hate. It's easier than actually explaining their objection on a rational level."
One cannot raise rational objections to an economist's argument for the same reason you can't raise rational objections to an astrologer's - which is that economics is not rational. It is not an objective science but a self-justifying ideological spectacle - a modern religion with the 'invisible hand' as its god. If you want to learn about the *science* of resouce-management you will need to retrain as ecologists.
"Remember, our financial engineering made it possible for these people to afford web-based relational databases across a fiber network and highly available cluster of servers to spread the message that we're the bad guys."
Actually damn hard work, creativity and vision on the part of independent media activists, fundraising groups and recycling technicians all over the world made is possible for us to create the IMC network. The hardware itself was made by *workers*, not bankers. Without the 'trickle-down' (and pour-up) resource inequalities created by capitalism *everyone* will have a usable computer with a wireless modem to participate in IMC with. In the meantime the Information Liberation Front redistribute IT as best we can; http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/
"I guess those skinheads and anti-globalists are right -- there IS a Jewish banking conspiracy. It's so easy to say that in the luxury that capitalism alone can create."
You are right that only capitalism can create the luxury you enjoy, only under capitalism does your elite (5% of global population) control the 80% of the world's resources required to maintain such luxury. If you think the international resistence against the concentration of political and economic power by the corporate empire consists only of nationalist skinheads you are in for a surprise.
Rocks'n'Bones,
Strypey
* Hitler was evil.
* You didn't like Hitler.
* You don't like us.
* Therefore we're evil. It's obvious.
Who is our "maddening leader"? Ralph Nader?
Come on.
The establishment was so successful during the twentieth century at assassinating dissident leaders and crushing their organizations that it has finally created, by elimination, something it doesn't know how to deal with: a movement without any charismatic leadership figures, with an organizer class that's too large to kill off, with no ideology, with a hundred different dissident philosophies and thousands of organizations, none of which is individually large and successful enough to become an easy target for establishment repression.
Even the twentieth-century concept of "nonviolence" is getting pretty frayed at the edges. The thing is, when they kill off the effective nonviolent leaders, then the only nonviolent activists anyone sees running around will be the ineffective ones. The establishment cannot continue to demand that dissidents follow a script that says cops and soldiers can do whatever they want, and protesters have to be passive and polite, when the same establishment has made sure that passivity and politeness never works. The establishment only makes concessions when dissidence becomes scary and troublesome. They make the rules, we're just playing the game. If they don't like it, they can change the rules.
Oh, and fuck you and your property. The Creator of the World made it for everybody, and He or She didn't invite anybody to fence it off and repossess it if the occupants can't keep up the mortgage payments.
My family was run off its land in Minnesota a hundred years ago, and we've been stuck in the rat race ever since. There aren't as many jobs on the railroads as there used to be either, where the first generation of former farmers ended up back then. We never agreed to any of this. The modern social contract is being imposed on us from the outside.
Not as old as I sound,
Tim