The Battle After Seattle

Reason's man in Washington, DC works the IMF/World Bank protests.

Michael W. Lynch | April 17, 2000

WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 16 -- It was a day of heroic protest and focused advocacy on the streets of the nation's capital. The International Monetary Fund delegates made it into their big meetings, which went off as scheduled. But that didn’t stop other bold acts.

As early as 6:45 AM I witnessed brave protesters blockade a cab at the corner of 19th and K Streets. A bewildered driver sat helpless as college kids stood at his bumper and chanted, "Whose streets? Our streets," a slogan that would be heard throughout the day. The hack's frustrated fare got out and walked. "It’s just a mess," said Officer Jackson of International Security Service, who stood watching nearby. "I don’t know why they want to block that intersection."

"Strip Clothes, Not Mines"
Later in the morning, a group of anarchists marched in lockstep, taking subversive action by spray painting, "This is just beginning" and "Anarchy is the Answer," on a sidewalk. At one point, a group of anarchists cooperated to drag a large dumpster into the street, turn it over, and light its contents on fire. Minutes later, a hippie was pouring his bottled water on the smoldering trash, displaying a division of labor common among protesters.

The anarchists appear to be an unseemly mix of street kids without access to showers or laundry machines and college students, who want more of an edge than the hippie lifestyle allows. Most of the anarchists I approached refused interviews, but one was willing to talk. "Anarchy will mean small communal organizations and direct democracy," the nameless fellow told me through his black bandanna. When I asked if we might not be freer under today’s more impersonal regime, he said no. "Direct democracy means you have the right to say no. Being able to say no, that is what freedom is about."

While much of the early action was at barricade sites bolstered by newspaper boxes, garbage cans, and other portable but heavy detritus, there were free floating radicals who were quite entertaining. One group had a cardboard Trojan Horse, on which World Bank and IMF were inscribed. There were the obligatory 15-foot puppets of President Clinton and two other aged men, who presumably represent the heads of the IMF and World Bank. A group of four women paraded topless, brazenly displaying such slogans as "All the IMF got was my shirt," "Free Mumia," and "Strip Clothes, Not Mines." Their strutting down I street garnered considerable attention—the one wearing the "Strip Clothes" slogan had enormous breasts.

The protest, billed as an alliance of labor and leftists, was really two events. The unofficial protest that started early in the morning with the intention of shutting down the meetings, and a sanctioned and fully permitted event on the Ellipse between the White House and Washington Monument. Zaftig film maker Michael Moore emceed this event, which featured a steady stream of ranting leftists, and was followed by a legal and uneventful march.

Those taking part in the direct action were neither likely to be in a labor union or even know anyone who is, unless the dining hall workers at their colleges are organized. (There were some older activists, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t union members, since that’d mean having a job. Perhaps the labor activists were holed up with Al Gore in his office.)

I wanted to get a sense of what so riled these folks up about the IMF and World Bank, two organizations for which I myself have no strong affection (what exactly do bureaucrats know about growing economies?). Elana Berkowitz, a junior majoring in political science and modern culture and media at Brown University, said students at her school wanted to show that they cared enough to force a change in the corporate bureaucracies that run the IMF and World Bank. She was the spokesperson for the Providence, Rhode Island, contingent, which was barricading 18th Street at I Street. She wants debt forgiveness and feels that workers in Haiti should be paid at least 65 cents an hour.

"All we do is sit around."
The protesters were attempting to barricade a 50-block area, which I covered on bicycle. As I made my rounds, checking in at the various checkpoints, I noticed that the ranks of protesters were getting thinner, even as those who were marching around making jolly were swelling. It’s boring to sit in one place for four hours, especially if there’s women marching around topless. As early as 8:00 AM people were complaining that their "lines" were thin and in need of support. I ran into a bunch of the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist protesters at Burger King, where I picked up breakfast. The line was so long at a K Street coffee shop that folks gave up and left.

"I’m hungry," said a protester, stationed on 17th Street just below the Old Executive Office Building. "All we do is sit around," said another, who was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "People Power, Not Flower Power."

The networks and wire services have focused on a skirmish on Pennsylvania Avenue, where the cops reportedly fired pepper spray at and even clubbed a few protesters who were allegedly stealing from a construction site. This is understandable, since it is the closest thing to traditional news the day generated for correspondents, like myself, who were looking for some blood. But don’t let this coverage characterize the broader protest as either violent or productive for the protesters. The skirmish didn’t last long. And, as of 4:00 PM, the media center still had no confirmed arrests, although a television report says a protester found with two Molotov cocktails was arrested.

Thus the protesters failed to achieve either of the days’ two goals: blocking the meetings and generating mass arrests, always an implicit goal of such demonstrations. "I can’t believe there haven’t been any arrests," Darwin Fishman, an old friend from California and frequent protester told me when I ran into him mid-morning. "Wait until tomorrow."

Its not that the week’s protests haven’t generated arrests. They’ve just occurred at times that were inconvenient for the main events: today and tomorrow’s protests.

Activists have been complaining all week about police harassment. The cops have been stopping cars and asking for identification. They have used motorcycles to chase obnoxious bicyclists around. "We shut them motherfuckers down," a cop told his buddy as they banged fists after a puppet show and bicycle rally in DuPont Circle on Friday night.

The cops raided the central organizing warehouse, known as the "convergence space," and confiscated, along with medicine and personal effects, the plumbing apparatus known as "sleeping dragons" that protesters use to chain and lock themselves together. last night, police arrested more than 600 protesters for marching without a permit. The protest media center claims between 100 and 400 are still sitting in DC’s jail.