University of Wisconsin students and Madison residents were among the hundreds of protesters arrested during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings Sept. 27.
Protesters congregated over the weekend to criticize the World Bank and IMF’s dealings with poverty-stricken countries and to protest corporate globalization.
The World Bank and IMF loan billions of dollars to developing countries with the goal “to reduce poverty and improve living standards.”
Todd Price, a Madison resident in Washington during the protests, said protesters were critical of the World Bank and IMF because countries borrowing money from them spiral into tremendous debt they cannot repay and remain unstable due to their economy’s reliance on one export crop for their subsistence.
An estimated 2,000 protesters participated in a “Day of Non-Compliance and Resistance” Sept. 27, organized by the Anti-Capitalist Convergence with the goals to “shut down the city” and vocalize their opposition.
UW student Ivan Welander traveled to Washington to protest developing countries’ debt to the IMF and World Bank.
“These countries are forced to make luxury goods for rich countries in order to earn money to pay back their debt,” Welander said.
Price said the large police presence in Washington created an immediately tense and confrontational atmosphere as protesters gathered together in the street.
“The protesters there were practicing non-violence, and I saw nothing untoward the police,” Price said. “The police strategy was to take the heart out of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence.”
Police conducted a wave of arrests of over 650 protesters for charges of failure to obey, incommoding and parading without a permit.
Welander said protesters had marched two blocks and had not begun any form of expression when police corralled the entire crowd against a wall and started arresting them.
“At one point, many people chanted ‘let us disperse,’ but the police gave no response,” Welander said. He said he was standing alongside the crowd when a police officer threw him to the ground.
“The officer stepped on my neck, and I saw stars,” he said. “Then they ripped off my backpack and handcuffed me.”
The protesters were loaded onto city buses and taken to a police academy in Virginia where they awaited processing. Welander said he was given two small meals during his 17-hour wait to be processed, and his friend who was allergic to the meal could eat nothing at all. At 2 a.m., Welander was fingerprinted, photographed and sent to a gymnasium packed with the other protesters, all with one foot handcuffed to their right hand. He said people were sleeping and sitting while others were sent to jail.
“They never told me the charges or why I was arrested,” he said. “I asked multiple times, but the only thing they told me was that if I had an id and $50 I could go.”
Welander said he refused to give them his name, and as a result he was sent the next morning to a Washington, D.C. courthouse-jail cell with 50 other men. He said they were given lawyers and a few minutes to determine their rights. Individuals and groups were called for arraignment until 8 or 9 p.m., he said. Some of the people who were left over, including him, had their charges dropped and were released.
He said there were activists waiting in a park outside the courthouse providing legal support, food and hugs for the released protesters.
Welander said he had a sinking feeling about the ordeal when he left the courthouse.
“I was disheartened,” he said. “I’d been abused by the system I was struggling against.”
He said a friend gave him a fortune cookie in the park, which summarized his attitude today.
“It read ‘you will become more passionate and determined about your convictions,'” Welander stated.
