The Resistance

The stark fact that the Fund and the Bank now operate with reverse capital flows - in other words they take more money out of the Third World than they put back in - is sobering for those who believed these institutions were there to help. Peoples of the Third World are resisting structural adjustment either through street riots or less confrontational politics. Protest too is coming from the four million people uprooted or to be uprooted by World Bank mega-projects, particularly the building of large dams. Rejection of all things Western is on the rise. Fundamentalism and the politics of ethnic exclusion (from Somalia to India) are turning political costs into military ones. And the Bretton Woods institutions themselves are coming under direct pressure from community activists and environmentalists calling for either their reform or outright abolition. After 50 years the decisions reached at Bretton Woods need some fundamental rethinking. Many of these themes will be explored at the People's Summit from June 11 to 18, 1995 in Halifax.
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