IMF update -- Good News! (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 12:54:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: C Soren Ambrose <soren@igc.apc.org>
To: 50-years@igc.org
Subject: IMF update -- Good News!

50 Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice
*IMF Update - Friday  April 24, 1998*
 
It has been a very good week for our campaign to block the Clinton
Administration's request for $18 billion for the IMF.  The
persistence of you folks who have contacted your Representatives is
definitely paying off. It looks pretty certain that we now have
blocked the Administration's wish to tie the money to an emergency
spending bill.  That means they'll now have to go through the full
normal appropriations process they had hoped to circumvent, and that
gives opponents a lot more time and opportunity to make their (our)
case against the allocation.
 
Congress returned from its Spring Recess on Monday as we read an
account of Speaker Newt Gingrich saying at some fundraiser that IMF
funding was further behind than it was six weeks ago.  That was a
nice setup for the hearing organized by the Oversight Subcommittee of
the House Banking Committee on Tuesday.  
 
The hearing was called by Subcommittee Chair Spencer Bacus (R-
Alabama) and our good friend Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and featured
the first appearance by the U.S. Executive Director to the IMF, Karin
Lissakers, at a Congressional hearing.  The idea was to ask some
questions about why the many attempts by Congress to demand reform at
the IMF (insisting that the E.D. use her "voice and vote") seemed to
have little impact.  She appeared with Treasury Dept. official Tim
Geithner.
 
Lissakers did not do well, which is particularly puzzling in light of
the fact that she was told most of the questions in advance, and had
been asked them at earlier, less formal, sessions.  Geithner seemed
much more sure of himself.  Much of the questioning centered on the
fact that though she estimates the Board has made about 2000
decisions since she started in 1993, there have been only about a
dozen formal votes.  This is because they prefer to operate by
consensus.  It also means that Lissakers doesn't have to follow
Congress's requirements because votes are so seldom taken.  
 
Sanders was particularly good in hammering away at the illegality of
U.S. agreement to the IMF-led bailout of Indonesia, a major human
rights violator according to State Department reports, and an
authoritarian government and abuser of labor rights by any measure.
(Sanders co-sponsored a bill in 1994 to prohibit any U.S. support in
international financial institutions of countries violating basic
labor rights.)  Both he and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) made clear
statements that they believed the E.D. was not obeying the laws
passed by Congress.
 
The full subcommittee was not present; indeed Bacus and Sanders were
the only ones there most of the time (such attendance is not at all
uncommon at Congressional subcommittees however).  The only others to
ask questions were two members who aren't on the Banking Committee --
Kucinich and James Saxton (R-New Jersey).  Saxton heads the Joint
Economic Committee of the House and Senate, opposes the IMF strongly,
and has issued reports questioning the IMF's procedures and asked the
Government Accounting Office (GAO) to do a full investigation. 
Lissakers was unable to answer Saxton's questions about the Fund's
accounting procedures.  Bacus's most insistent line of questioning
was about the below-market interest rates charged by the IMF.
 
The hearing room was packed during the time Lissakers and Geithner
were testifying, and there were about 25 members of the press
present.  The crowd diminished substantially after Lissakers left. 
Thus the news stories the next day, including a substantial piece in
the New York Times, reported only on this portion of the hearing (and
it was the most newsworthy).  The NYT article focused on the
possibility that U.S. law had been violated in the Indonesia bailout,
and gave good coverage of Sanders's charges that Lissakers was not
complying with Congressional directives.  
 
The subsequent panels included Ralph Nader, former U.S. E.D. to the
IMF Thomas Dawson (the token IMF booster), right-wingers Edwin
Feulner (president of the Heritage Foundation, and someone who said
just about nothing we would argue with!), Lawrence Lindsey, and Ian
Vasquez (Cato Institute), and, again from our side, Walden Bello
(Focus on the Global South in Bangkok) and John Cavanagh (Institute
for Policy Studies).  Lots of good things were said, with perhaps the
most notable being Nader's repeated calls for IMF Managing Director
Michel Camdessus to come to Congress and testify in open hearings.  I
should also mention the surprising nature of Rep. Bacus's line of
questioning with Cavanagh: this Republican asked him about how IMF
policies encourage the destruction of the valuable rainforests of
southeast Asia, and have done so in the past in South America and
Africa.  The environmental angle seems to be catching on in some
unlikely places.
 
The media coverage of this hearing buoyed the anti-IMF forces. I
think however that we were all surprised by the move late on Thursday
by David Obey (D-Wisconsin and ranking member of the House
Appropriations Committee) to get the full House to instruct its
representatives to the House-Senate Conference Committee to go along
with the Senate's attachment of the $18 billion for the IMF to the
emergency funding bill for disaster relief now being reconciled by
the two houses of Congress.  Speaker Newt Gingrich responded by
blasting the IMF as "consistently wrong" and said "We believe, on
behalf of the taxpayers, that we have the right, as the Congress, to
ask some very tough questions of a multibillion-dollar bureaucratic
institution that is totally secret."  The vote was 222-186 to reject
Obey's suggestion.  
 
While some comments by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska and chair of the
Senate Appropriations Committee) suggest that this could get turned
around again if the disaster relief bill isn't completed by May 1, it
really looks like we have achieved a significant victory here.  
 
Of course this just sets the stage for the next round -- which will
likely focus on the question of capital account liberalization. 
We'll let you know how you can help, you can be sure.
 
And finally, I will have an op-ed on the IMF in this Sunday's
*Washington Post* "Outlook" section.  I will post it as soon as I
have the final revisions.
 
Soren Ambrose