Wolfensohn Gets Wake-Up Call From Protesters

Reuters Photo Audio/Video Protestors Dump Manure In front Of The IMF Headquarters In Washington Windows Media - 28.8 | 56 Realplayer G2 Download Players Here

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Activists from developing nations woke up World Bank president James Wolfensohn at daybreak on Saturday with a message: change your lending policies or face a boycott of the bank's bonds.

Twenty activists gathered outside Wolfensohn's residence in Washington's Embassy Row neighborhood with banners saying: ''Wake up, World Bank.''

They handed him a letter criticizing the bank's lending programs for increasing indebtedness and poverty in developing countries, promoting sweatshops and destroying the environment.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions tied to the loans have widened the gap between rich and poor and worsened unemployment, the letter signed by 450 people in 35 countries said.

It was handed to Wolfensohn by Vineeta Gupta, a doctor from the Punjab in India and an organizer of a campaign launched on Monday to persuade investors to boycott the bank's bonds.

``The World Bank is subjugating our economic and social independence,'' Gupta said. ``It is time that we shut the Bank down, and this boycott is a great start.''

So far the city of Berkeley, California, church and labor organizations, and five investment firms including Trillium Assets Management of Boston have joined the boycott.

The demonstration was part of a week-long campaign of protests by environmental, labor and human rights groups trying to disrupt the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank that opens on Sunday.

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It included activists from South Africa, Zimbabwe, South Korea, the Philippines, Bolivia and Ecuador.

``All that's left to privatize in Bolivia is the air and water,'' said Oscar Olivera, who led a movement against water rate hikes by a private company in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that sparked recent social unrest in the Andean nation.

Reuters Photo

Protesters hope for a repeat of the successful demonstration against unfettered free trade at a World Trade Organization conclave in Seattle last December.

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