RAWALPINDI, April 25: The People's Rights Movement (PRM) has expressed solidarity with anti-capitalist forces around the world in their demand to decommission the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says a press release.

World wide protests will be held on Monday in connection with the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), formed by the capitalist countries prior to the end of the second World War to ensure that the post-war global economic dispensation could be regulated by institutions serving their interests.

"PRM believes that the BWIs have, in fact, been active agents of neo-colonialism and increased dependency of the world's poorest countries on the three great poles of capitalism - the US, western Europe and Japan."

Indeed, the promises made by the World Bank and the IMF after countries like Pakistan won freedom from colonial rule have never been fulfilled. Instead, Pakistan is now "indebted" to the global financial elite to the tune of $36 billion, has a poverty rate well over 40 per cent and remains a society wrought by massive inequalities, injustice and arbitrary and undemocratic rule, the press release said.

The PRM condemned the role of the BWIs in particular over the last four-and-a-half years. The IMF's Independent Evaluation Office has acknowledged that the IMF's funding to Pakistan has never been independent of geo-political concerns. This was clear during the 1980s when Gen Ziaul Haq was catering to imperialism's interests and now since the takeover of Gen Pervez Musharraf.