Extinction Rebellion brings debt/extraction protest back to IMF and World Bank

Video of the protest including the failed attempt by security guards to stop chalking 2 min 28 sec

On the 4th of February, protesters returned to the IMF and World Bank. This time around it was Extinction Rebellion DC, protesting IMF and World Bank "loans" to nations in the global South-and demands that "debtor" nations permit fracking, pipelines, and fossil fuel export. From 20 to ten years ago, the IMF and World Bank endured siege after siege by protesters over almost the same issues.

The February 4, 2022 protest was billed as the "Coastline Rebellion" after a catastrophic oil spill in Peru. It is being held in particular to support Indigenous water protectors in so-called Central and South "America" who are resisting fracking and pipelines just as they do in North Dakota and Minnesota. The DC protest was just one of a global series of protests held all over the planet over the same issues.

Late in the DC protest, the IMF's security guards attempted to intimidate protesters out of using sidewalk chalk, only to have their bluff called as videographers moved in to record the confrontation. They ended up watching but unable to back up their bluster and bluffs as protesters chalked messages of resistance on the sidewalk with both legal and practical impunity.

Clearly the IMF and World Bank are slow learners. The particular predatory loans that drew protests the size of multiple army divisions to the IMF and World Bank's meetings in past years were eventually paid off with the help of oil money donated by Venezuala's Hugo Chavez. At one point these institutions seemd to fade from relevence with those loans gone. Now however, the IMF and World Bank are back, like a mafia loan shark just released from prison. They are back to their old evil ways, hoping the Great Siege of the IMF and World Bank in April 2000 has been forgotten by their opponents. This time around, fracking and pipelines are in fashion as methods of robbing less wealthy nations of their resources. The IMF and World Bank are acting as though little has changed since the days when week-long protests against the IMF's meetings rocked DC. Again predatory loans are being written. Again the IMF and World Bank are demanding nations be opened to multinational corporations as the price of these loans to dictators and wealthy thieves in power.

Thus, protesters are gearing up too, and again the fight is being taken to the IMF and World Bank. They have been defeated before, and they will be defeated again!