Beware of the I.M.F. Pack of Lies! The Truth: Tobacco Privatization Kills!

BEWARE OF THE
I.M.F PACK OF LIES !

The Truth: TOBACCO PRIVATIZATION KILLS !

The global Merchants of Death, a.k.a Philip Morris British American Tobacco, have a good friend in the International Monetary Fund. The IMF doesn't think twice about forcing low-income nations to sell their inefficient tobacco monopolies to multinational tobacco corporations that are true masters of killing for profit. On September 23, 2002, Essential Action released a report detailing how the IMF pushes policies that undermine public health and help Big Tobacco. We also held a demonstration in front of the IMF headquarters to expose the IMF's "pack of lies"!

ESSENTIAL ACTION REPORT: NEEDLESS HARM
International Monetary Fund Support for Tobacco Privatization and for Tobacco Tax and Tariff Reduction, and the Cost to Public Health
To access the report, click here: HTML , PDF

In particular, Essential Action's investigation found that the IMF has pushed for tobacco privatization in: Bulgaria, Korea, Mali, Moldova, Thailand, Turkey. Essential Action also found that the IMF has supported excise tax or tariff reductions in: Djibouti, The Gambia, Macedonia, Peru, and Uganda.

"TOBACCO PRIVATIZATION KILLS" DEMO A SUCCESS!
Our gigantic, 10-foot high "IMF Pack of Lies" prop succeeded in garnering tremendous media coverage. The prop featured four huge removable cigarettes labelled "IMF hurts Turkey," "IMF hurts Moldova," "IMF hurts Thailand" and "IMF hurts Mali" -- all countries where the IMF has aggressively pushed for tobacco privatization.

The media, eager to report on "actions" leading up to the large demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank this coming weekend, billed the event as "the first demonstration of the week" and came out en masse. All the local television stations covered the demonstration during the evening news. Fox News included a short interview with an IMF spokesperson (who unconvincingly argued that tobacco privatization is "good" for people in other countries). Several photos ran in newspapers and national newswires: Washington Post, Reuters, Associated Press

About 25 people participated in the demo, including a number of tobacco control advocates from around the country (who conveniently happened to be in town for the Advocacy Institute's fellowship program). At the beginning, the reporters outnumbered the demonstrators, so we turned the event into an impromptu press conference. Robert Weissman, Co-Director of Essential Action, announced the release of the "NEEDLESS HARM" report and gave an overview of the IMF's harmful policies related to tobacco. Anna White, Coordinator of Essential Action's Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control program, briefly described three examples of the IMF pressuring countries to privatize their tobacco monopolies (Turkey, Moldova, Thailand). View a photo of press conference

After the press conference, demonstrators marched in a circle chanting slogans like "Hey hey, ho ho! Tobacco privatization's got to go!", "IMF pushes smoking - We're not joking!", and "IMF, what do you say? How many kids have you hooked today?" and holding signs such as: