Subject: Martin Luther King -- and "Globalization"
Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building,
Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * [log in to unmask] ___________________________________________________
Monday,
April 3, 2000
Tuesday: The 32nd Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr.
King MARTIN LUTHER KING -- AND "GLOBALIZATION"
A year to the day
before his assassination on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a
landmark speech in which he denounced the Vietnam War -- and challenged
global economic relations (see: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/speeches/contents.htm).
Now, 32 years later, hundreds of organizations are preparing to protest the
policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in mid-April
in Washington, D.C. (see http://www.a16.org). The following activists
are available for interviews:
REV. JAMES LAWSON A colleague of King
and pastor emeritus of the Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles,
Lawson said: "What Clinton and others call 'globalization,' King would call
simply another way of continuing the economic, political and military
domination of Africa, Latin America and Asia by the United States.... King
envisioned a 'world house' where all nations and all peoples would be moving
towards authentic peace and human solidarity. He saw the economic injustice
of racism as a major obstacle for the 'world house.'"
CAROL
RICHARDSON, http://www.soaw.org Co-director
of School of the Americas Watch, Richardson said: "In the same tradition as
King -- confronting violence with nonviolence -- we have organized
demonstrations to shut down the School of the Americas, which trains Latin
American militaries. The SOA has always been about protecting U.S. economic
interests. You can't have the economic policies of the IMF and the World Bank
without the military muscle to enforce it."
WILSON RILES Jr., [log in to unmask], http://www.afsc.org Regional director of the
American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, Riles said today: "Dr.
King talked of a 'radical revolution of values'; he spoke against greed, war
and the weapons industry. Today, some of the same corporations are using the
IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization to further their interests.
Developing countries need money -- but as conditions for loans, they are
forced to allow these transnational corporations to exploit them, from their
laborers to mineral resources to genetic patents."
ELIZABETH
McALISTER, [log in to unmask], http://www.catholicworker.org Longtime
peace activist and resident of Jonah House in Baltimore, McAlister said: "We
are living in a state where the government is of, by and for the wealthy
including the major corporations. They protect their interests by any means
necessary -- and that means war and weapons of mass destruction, and
poisoning the earth and the people of the earth." She is married to Philip
Berrigan, who last week was sentenced to 30 months in prison for hammering a
plane that bombed Iraq and Yugoslavia with depleted uranium.
For more
information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini,
(202) 347-0020