Youth activists slam World Bank for funding GFMD, imposing
‘anti-people’ policies

News Release
October 24, 2008

Youth activists led by Anakbayan and League of Filipino Students (LFS)
rallied in front of the office of the World Bank (WB) today as part of
the protests against the upcoming Global Forum on Migration and
Development (GFMD), which the WB is funding.

According to Ken Ramos, Anakbayan chairperson, the GFMD, is “another
twisted scheme by the big institutions and imperialist nations to
further exploit migrants and the peoples of the poor nations.”

“The World Bank is the Dracula sucking the third world nations dry and
exploiting further the already suffering people. The flawed economic
policies imposed by the WB is to be blamed for the continuing crisis
and deepening poverty in the Philippines and the rest of the world,
which brings about the phenomenon of mass labor migration,” said
Ramos.

He said that the GFMD is a venue for the further implementation of
“globalization” policies, this time with respect to migration.

For his part, Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of LFS, said
that the WB is in connivance with big businesses and large capitalist
nations in order to profit from the migration phenomenon, especially
the remittances which amount to billions of dollars.

“Big nations experiencing severe financial crisis are now aiming to
extract further profits from the remitances of migrants which amount
to billions of dollars. This is what’s behind the GFMD,” said
Crisostomo.

He called the GFMD a “cover-up” of the real state of migration and
poverty in the third world and said that it will only bring forth
“further exploitation of migrants and further lack of development and
desperation among the people in poor nations.”

The youth groups together with international migrant organizations are
planning big rallies and actions next week to protest the GFMD. #

Reference: Ken Ramos, 09215129678

–
Visit the NEW LFS WEBSITE: http://www.lfs.ph