CONTACT:
Paul Davis or Asia Russell: 215-731-1844

(Philadelphia) ACT Philadelphia is mobilizing over 1,000 angry protesters to take part in the April 16 march on Washington D.C. to shut down the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Hundreds of ACT UP members will fill the streets in civil-disobedience Sunday morning April 16, seeking to shut down the IMF. Later, over 1000 ACT UP Philadelphia members will gather at 11:45 at the southwest corner of the Ellipse, marching to join the permitted demonstration on the south side of the White House. People with AIDS and their supporters will then move en masse toward the larger demonstration to close down the International Monetary Fund.

ACT UP Philadelphia, the nation's largest AIDS activist organization, will focus on defeating the Clinton Administration's ìAfrica Growth and Opportunity Act,î as well as exposing the policies of the IMF and World Bank.

The Africa trade bill, supported by Clinton, was introduced by Senator Finance Chair William Roth (R-DE). The bill imposes IMF-style structural adjustment requirements on sub-Saharan nations. Structural Adjustment Programs compel a nation to reorganize its economy in order to pay off a giant debt. Many developing countries carry foreign debts that are larger than their gross national product. ìThe Clinton-Gore administration supports a free-trade-based subsidy that will endanger millions of lives,î said ACT UP's Paul Davis. ìThe President is pushing hard for a bill that retains Structural Adjustment Programs with or without the IMF. Clinton's Africa trade bill bullies poor nations into prioritizing debt payment over health spending, favoring exports over self-sufficiency. Big business prospers, while millions of citizens are left without life-saving medicine.î

Worldwide, AIDS kills 6,800 people per day. Of the 34 million people with HIV on this planet, 70%ó23.3 millionólive in sub-Saharan, where 13.7 million AIDS related deaths have already occurred. By 2005, AIDS related deaths will cause life expectancy in Africa to drop to approximately 45 years, a low Africa hasn't experienced since the 1950s. 3.8 million of the 5.6 million new HIV infections were in sub-Saharan Africa in 1999.

According to the 1998 UN Development report, sub-Saharan Africa pays $20 million each day in service of its debt in interest and capital repayments. That's about the same amount Microsoft makes in profit each day. Total debt owed by SUB-SAHARAN amounts to $200 billion.

Just as ACT UP's September 17 occupation of the US Trade Representative's office was "a calling card action for Seattle," the April 16 demonstrations will be magnified by the group during the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia beginning August 1.

ACT UP Demands:

- The US must use its clout as the single largest shareholder of IMF investment to push through debt relief proposals that are not linked to structural adjustment programs.

- The Administration and Congress MUST DROP the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

- Congress must cease efforts to strip or water-down Senator Feinstein's AGOA Amendment. (prohibiting USTR actions that would punish poor countries that attempt to legally manufacture generic versions of expensive, patented, life saving medicines)

Background: The IMF has failed to meet its mission: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a 'gatekeeper' for international lending institutions. In order to qualify loans, a nation must submit to 'Structural Adjustment Programs' requiring economies to be restructured to prioritize debt-repayment over social spending, such as education or health care. Farmers' land has been seized by impoverished governments, forests have been cleared to plant crops, and national health systems have been closed. Nations under IMF direction are forced to redirect production from away from self-sufficiency toward exporting products to service debt

- In Zimbabwe over 1 in 5 people age 15-49 have HIV. In the early 1980s, infant mortality was decreasing and life expectancy was rising, along with other health indicators. Zimbabwe turned to the IMF for a $500 million loan. Once the Structural Adjustment Program attached to the loan was implemented, wages plunged, government spending was cut and Zimbabwe spiraled into an economic crisis. Government healthcare spending was also cut, as well as wage cut that health care workers were already experiencing.

- In the Ivory Coast, where one in ten adults is HIV infected, structural adjustment has resulted in a doubling in the rate of poverty, by 1995, 36% of Ivorians earned less than 1 dollar per day, compared with 17.8% in the late 1980s, before the nation's involvement with the IMF and World Bank.

- The US congress recently commissioned a study on the policies and role of the IMF and the World Bank. The subsequent Meltzer report strongly suggests that the debts owed to the IMF and World Bank by the poorest countries should be immediately written off, without continued ties to the institutions' economic policies. The report also charges that the IMF should no longer play a central role in the economies of poor nations.

ACT UP Global campaign - Access to Medication for Every Nation: ACT UP Philadelphia has been at the forefront of a struggle to win medication for people in poor nations. 90% of people with AIDS live in the developing world, and have no access to treatment. ACT UP Philadelphia members disrupted a number of Vice President Gore's early campaign appearances, relenting only after the candidate changed his position on South Africa's initiatives to locally manufacture generic versions of expensive life-saving medicines. President Clinton's World AIDS Day announcement came one day after a major demonstration by ACT UP at the White House on November 30. The US Trade Representative (USTR) will release the "301 Watch List" by April 30. The list contains the USTR trade grievances and actions planned against other countries. The USTR's Joseph Papovich has promised ACT UP that the new policy will be applied to the list currently being crafted by the cabinet-level office. "We applaud the announcement made by President Clinton on World AIDS Day in Seattle," said ACT UP's John Bell. "But with the USTR wii release its list of nations that it plans to bully by the end of April. We hope that the Administration's announcement amounts to a real policy change. Otherwise, we may have to revisit Al Gore's campaign appearances," continued Bell. The April 16 action targeting the IMF follows a Wednesday meeting between ACT UP, the USTR, and representatives of HHS and the National Security Council. "Our meeting on the 12th will help us gage if there was any substance to the Vice President's announcement of a policy shift when he addressed the United Nations. We look forward to supporting a candidate who will stand up to the pharmaceutical lobby. We hope Gore keeps his promises," said ACT UP's Paul Davis. A typical HIV/AIDS cocktail in the US costs more than $10,000 per year. The vast majority of HIV/AIDS patients in Africa are unable to afford life-saving medicine in spite of very low physical production costs. Drug companies argue that 'compulsory licensing,' or generic manufacture, will reduce research and development incentives. However, the majority of research is performed by the US Government, which is then supplemented by massive subsidy to private industry to pursue licensed government inventions. Africa only accounts for 1.3 percent of the worldwide pharmaceutical market. "The multibillion-dollar drug companies who hold the patents on these therapies set prices as high as the markets of wealthy nations will bear. Millions in poor countries will die as a result; drug companies believe this is an acceptable situation. We call it genocide," said ACT UP member Janice D'Angelo.

US trade policy - African Growth and Opportunity Act President Clinton announced in Seattle (as did candidate Al Gore at the United Nations Security Council meeting January 11) that the US Trade Representative would no longer routinely levy sanctions against nations taking WTO-legal steps to increase access to life-saving medicines. However, the trade-related package pushed in Congress by the Clinton/Gore Administration includes the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, a bill that some call "the Africa Re-enslavement Act." In addition to steering AGOA through conference committee, Senator Roth is leading conservative efforts to strip an amendment from Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) prohibiting USTR actions punishing poor countries legally manufacturing generic versions of expensive patented medicines. PhRMA, the powerful drug company lobby firm, is pushing a reversal in the language of the Feinstein amendment so that the legislation would enforce intellectual property provisions exceeding WTO agreements. If passed, the Roth/PhRMA measure would render meaningless the Clinton announcement of Dec 1, The US would resume actions against poor countries taking steps to increase access to life-saving medicine. "Congressional extremists like William Roth are hired by the drug company lobby to push legislation forcing countries already buckling under the AIDS crisis to comply with policies far beyond already-restrictive WTO agreements on patent regulations," stated John Bell. "The nations of Africa should not be impeded from responding to dire health emergencies by a Western response that treats health care as an economic commodity rather than a right." -030-

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