(apologies if you receive this more than once)
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [SAPA] Urgent: Invitation to Join Call to Boycott IMF-WB Official
Program From: "Jenina Joy Chavez" <j.chavez@focusweb.org>
Date: Wed, September 13, 2006 3:52
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Dear Friends,
Please find below an invitation to join the call to boycott the official
program of the IMF and World Bank, initiated by several organizations,
South and North. We hope you will join us and sign on / endorse the
statement (below the invitation) and circulate it to others.
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Sept. 11, 2006
World Bank/IMF Singapore Meetings: Boycott Statement
Why a boycott?
The organizations listed below are calling for a boycott of the IMF/World
Bank meetings in Singapore. This move comes in response to the
announcements last week that a number of civil society organisation
representatives will not be allowed to enter the World Bank IMF meetings
in Singapore, and to the failed effort by the Singapore government to
secure the cancellation of the International People's Forum in Batam,
Indonesia. This call is the result of serious deliberations by groups
around the world, and is the culmination of a series of statements issued
by civil society organizations over the last week.
We call on all groups and individuals which have planned to organise or
attend official World Bank and IMF meetings in Singapore to cancel them,
and to submit the statement below in explanation.
A broad-based boycott will send a message that cannot be ignored: civil
society will not compromise on the fundamental rights to assembly and
expression. It will also cast a spotlight on the track records of the
Singaporean government, the World Bank and IMF.
Does a boycott contradict or undermine the efforts over many years to
establish space for civil society's voice at the IMF and World Bank?
After considerable discussion, we believe it is better to take an
unambiguous stand on the most basic freedoms we strive to defend. It is
imperative, above all, that we send a message that will be heard loudly
and clearly from Singapore to Washington, and everywhere the IMF and World
Bank operate. At this moment, this requirement supersedes the important
details of the advocacy that most of us engage in year-round. So long as
some of our colleagues are banned -- arbitrarily and illegitimately --
from such meetings, it would be unconscionable for others to go forward.
This is a matter of solidarity, but also a collective effort to prevent
the institutions from setting a very negative precedent which could, and
would, affect all of us in the future. We cannot allow the Singapore
government to suggest, with phrases like "security and law and order",
that our movements and work have anything in common with violence or
terrorism; attending meetings when our colleagues are banned on such
grounds would condone precisely such imputations.
We are aware that the IMF and World Bank have protested the moves by the
Singapore government, but they have not done anything substantive to
challenge the situation. Indeed, given Singapore's reputation for
precisely such behaviour, it is reasonable to infer that the institutions
anticipated such developments, and decided they would be acceptable. Their
statements thus far can only be considered pubic relations maneuvers.
Among the meetings that have already been cancelled are:
* Meeting with European Executive Directors to the World Bank and IMF
* Illegitimate debt meeting, part of the official civil society forum
(co-organised by INFID, Eurodad, Forum on Economic Reform)
* Meeting on World Bank/IMF policies in post-conflict societies
* Conditionality meeting (Oxfam and others)
A statement has been prepared by several groups on the basis of a series
of discussions in recent days. It is attached with an initial list of
signatories. The plan is to:
1. gather signatures from as many Civil Society Groups as possible between
now and Thursday morning (Indonesian time);
2. launch the statement on Friday.
What you can do
1. Endorse the statement at
http://www.focusweb.org/content/view/1069/27/ or by sending email to:
boycottcall@gmail.com
2. Please circulate this to other civil society groups that are attending.
3. Please do NOT release news of this boycott ahead of time. It will be
much more effective if it is released by multiple groups in a coordinated
manner.
4. Please inform us if you were organising meetings or speaking at
meetings and plan to cancel them. Send information to: boycott@gmail.com
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SIGN-ON STATEMENT
CALL FOR THE BOYCOTT OF WORLD BANK-IMF ANNUAL MEETINGS
September, 2006
We the undersigned representatives from civil society organisations and
social movements call for a boycott of the official programme at the World
Bank and IMF 2006 annual meetings in Singapore.
In order to stifle dissent and any possible protests at the IMF-World Bank
Annual Meetings, the Singapore Government has resorted to draconian
security measures. These include the Singapore Government's statement in
January that protesters at the IMF and World Bank meetings would be caned,
and the special surveillance measures in public and private spaces that
the government has put in place specifically for the Annual Meetings.
In recent days, the Singapore Government has also applied pressure on the
government of Riau Province in Indonesia to cancel the International
People's Forum scheduled to take place in Batam.
The government has also drawn up a "blacklist" of individuals who will not
be allowed access to Singapore. These include civil society
representatives who have already been accredited by the World bank-IMF to
the Annual Meetings, as well as those who have already obtained visas, or
require no visa to enter Singapore. The Singaporean government has
advanced no clear or valid reason for denying these people access, nor has
it publicly released the "blacklist." .
The IMF and World Bank cannot escape responsibility for recent
developments. Knowing full well the authoritarian character of the
Singaporean Government, they appear to have picked Singapore as the site
of their Annual Meetings because they wanted to avoid the legitimate and
peaceful street protests that have been staged at earlier World Bank-IMF
and World Trade Organization meetings. The choice of Singapore as a venue
for the annual meetings has been consistently criticised by civil society
organizations, yet the World Bank and IMF went on with their plans. We
condemn the Singapore
Government's repressive actions, and we also condemn the World Bank and
the IMF for being complicit in these actions.
In solidarity with those denied entry into Singapore and denied the
exercise of their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and
association, we will stay away from all meetings and seminars in the
official programme at the World Bank and IMF 2006 annual meetings in
Singapore.
We call on all social movements, civil society organizations and networks,
and individuals to uphold the rights of peoples to freedom of expression
and association, and to honour this boycott by staying away from the
official meetings in Singapore.
Signatories: (Please sign on)
INFID Indonesia
Freedom from Debt Coalition Philippines
Jubilee South
Focus on the Global South
Solidarity Africa Network
Campagna per la Riforma Della Banca Mondiale (Reform the World Bank
Campaign - Italy
World Development Movement, UK
Jubilee USA Network
50 Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice
European Network on Debt and Development
Greenpeace
Friends of the Earth International
Oil Watch International
Foundation for Media Alternatives
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