By Manny Fernandez and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post, September 9, 2002

Police and protesters are marshaling their forces for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in downtown Washington this month, with police seeking to boost their ranks with officers from other jurisdictions and one group of activists calling for a citywide strike and actions to snarl traffic.

In what has become one of Washington's rites of fall, protesters plan five days of marches, demonstrations, teach-ins and vigils beginning Sept. 25. The focus of the events are the Sept. 28 and 29 meetings of the World Bank and IMF, held at the institutions' Foggy Bottom headquarters, but a group of anarchists and anti-capitalists aims to shut down the city Sept. 27.

District police and city officials are attempting to recruit hundreds of officers from other jurisdictions but had difficulty getting the federal government to help pay security costs. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said last week that regardless of receiving federal aid, he would not pull police patrols from neighborhoods, saying his priority was to protect city residents.

Critics of World Bank and IMF policies say the events of Sept. 11, which led to cancellation of last year's Washington meetings and protests, may have momentarily disrupted the anti-globalization movement's momentum but not its dedication. "Rumors of the movement's death are greatly exaggerated," said protest organizer David Levy, 44, of Vienna.

The Mobilization for Global Justice, a District-based coalition that helped organize the raucous demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank in Washington in April 2000, is planning a Sept. 28 rally and march. Protesters are seeking permits for some events but plan other actions without permits, and they expect some activists to risk arrest.

The day before that, a Friday, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC), a District-based network of anarchist and anti-capitalist protesters, is calling for a citywide action, called "the People's Strike." Organizers say the event will be an effort to block traffic and disrupt the city in what protesters call a "day of noncompliance and resistance."

The ACC and Mobilization groups say they are preparing for thousands to attend, but organizers said it was too early to predict crowd sizes. The two groups are coalitions that are meeting separately to organize protests.

Ramsey also said he was unsure how many protesters would arrive and whether activists would try to make good on threats to shut down the city. Regardless of numbers, he said, motorists "can expect some traffic tie-ups," and he urged people to take public transportation during the protests.

Such uncertainty is a far cry from the situation last year. By this time last September, D.C. police were preparing for 100,000 protesters, and they planned to cordon off downtown areas with steel fencing and bring in a few thousand police from other cities. Demonstrators were predicting the biggest anti-globalization protest in the United States since thousands disrupted a trade summit in Seattle in 1999. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, the meetings, the bulk of the demonstrations and the security buildup were canceled.

In the two years between the Seattle protests and Sept. 11, protesters of all stripes were marching against international financial institutions under a general anti-oppression banner. These days, global summits do not grab the world's attention as they did then, and activists divide their time between a multitude of newly prominent causes, including antiwar, pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, pro-civil liberties and local grass-roots issues.

But many in the anti-globalization movement say the recent corporate scandals -- involving such companies as Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. -- have restored some of the old spirit. "Our opponents have given us the best weapons to reduce their power -- namely, their own greed," said Levy, a Mobilization organizer. "The movement has gained a lot of energy from this outrage."

Whether that will translate into large numbers in the streets remains unclear. Some protesters say it is unlikely that the demonstrations will get the 20,000-plus who protested in April 2000, although others think the numbers will be large. "It's very, very hard to say, but I think there will be a substantial turnout, on the scale of April 2000," said Robert Weissman, 36, a Mobilization organizer.

This year, Weissman and other Mobilization members are organizing a rally at the Ellipse and a march downtown. They also are working out the details of an evening demonstration called a "quarantine," in which activists plan to encircle part or all of the World Bank and IMF headquarters Sept. 28 to hem in "those who would infect us with economic smallpox," said organizer Nadine Bloch, 41.

The group wants the global financial bodies to cancel poor countries' debts, open meetings to the public and end policies that they say hinder access to food, health care and education.

The People's Strike is intended to be a different kind of demonstration. ACC organizers said the strike is meant to oppose capitalism, which the group says thrives on the misery of the many for the luxury of the few. The ACC seeks outright abolishment of the World Bank and IMF and demands cancellation of all debt owed by developing countries and of all personal debt, as well as "an end to imperialism and terrorism by the U.S. government and all states."

ACC organizers are urging people to stay home from work or school Sept. 27 or to go to work and give away their businesses' products. "Businesses, governmental institutions, schools and streets will be shut down, and in many senses reopened to new uses," ACC materials state. Such uses might include sit-ins, art exhibits or food redistribution, organizers said.

"We're calling on all workers of the city to join us," said Andrew Willis, 19, an American University sophomore and ACC organizer. Willis said the majority of events will be separately coordinated by small groups of fellow activists working in "affinity groups." He said organizers are not specific about a lot of the plans because they want participants to be creative.

The ACC, whose protests are often attended by masked, black-clad activists, is encouraging protesters to consider not dressing the part to keep authorities guessing.

One strike poster shows a wrench destroying a "Homeland Security" video camera. But Adam Eidinger, 28, a D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate for shadow representative in Congress who is helping organize the protest, said the event is meant to grab attention, not destroy property.

"I don't think people should be worried about that at all," Eidinger said. "One day of inconvenience in Washington, D.C., is a small price to pay for people living in the wealthiest country on earth."

Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, the city's deputy mayor for public safety and justice, dismissed any threats to snarl major traffic arteries. "They won't block entrances to the city," she said. "We will not let that happen."

District officials said last week that they had not been guaranteed reimbursement by the federal government for the cost of handling the protests. In August 2001, the Bush administration said the government would reimburse the District for up to $16 million of last year's security plan, which included recruiting 3,600 officers from nearly a dozen cities.

Kellems said the city this year set a deadline for tomorrow, and if no agreement with federal authorities had been reached by then, it would be too late to arrange hotels, food and other services for the 1,500 police the District wants to bring in from other jurisdictions. But without the money, the city faces another hurdle. Kellems said other agencies have agreed to provide 1,100 officers, but most are contingent upon a guarantee of reimbursement.

She said D.C. police could, nevertheless, handle the protests. But she said: "We are not, under any circumstances, going to be diminishing the police contingent in our neighborhoods."

The World Bank and IMF had initially planned to meet at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Woodley Road NW but were told by U.S. authorities last month to move the sessions downtown.

The two institutions announced in July that the meetings would be conducted in a "streamlined manner" and consolidated to Sept. 28 and 29.

The changes echo precautions taken in the months leading up to last year's sessions. This year's arrangements have been "driven purely by the advice of U.S. and District law enforcement and other agencies," said IMF spokesman William Murray. "It's really driven by the fact that we need to conduct business with the least amount of disruption to the District of Columbia."