Making our lack of voice seen

In a protest a couple of hours ago, activists all involved with the Global Call to Action against Poverty made a vivid demonstration of the lack of voice that poor people, their governments and the organisations representing them have at the 'World' Bank and 'International' Monetary Fund. (There's loads of coverage on the web if you want to see more.) Dozens of us stood in silent protest with t-shirts and gags over our mouths declaring that these people have 'no voice' here. The point is a long-term one: conditions on debt relief and aid mean that poor people and their organisations and movements have no voice in discussions about economic policy; and the structure of the IMF and World Bank (where the 44 countries of sub-Saharan Africa have just 2 seats on the executive boards) mean that poor governments have no voice in the institution's decisions. (These points were made far more eloquently by our spokespeople, Besinati Mpepo from Zambia and Bishop Akolgo from Ghana.) And of course the bans, detentions and deportations happening right now (see below) bring the point home, as - even more than usual - many organisations campaigning for economic justice have no voice here this week.

It was probably the strangest protest I've been in. Given Singapore's rather unusual (to say the least) laws on protest and assembly, we had to check in and out of a designated 'protest area' with barcoded passes to enter. Initially about half a dozen or so of our colleagues were held back and not allowed into the protest. But at least the world's media were here and apparently interested. And we've done much better than our many colleagues - including leading debt activists, and almost all from the South, of course - who are even now being detained, questioned and deported, and who are very dramatically being denied a voice.