Nearly three years after some 20,000 anti-globalization demonstrators all but shut down the city of Seattle, a fraction of that crowd showed up to protest this weekend’s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, D.C. The disappointing turnout (police, of whom there were plenty, placed the numbers at between 3,000 and 5,000) was widely attributed to a shift in activist priorities and a disruption of momentum since Sept. 11. (Last year’s IMF/World Bank meetings were called off because of the terrorist attacks.) Opponents of corporate globalization say projects funded by the two lending institutions often damage the environment and do little to bring poor countries out of poverty. Despite the weak turnout at the weekend protests, police arrested more than 600 demonstrators.
