[stop-imf] ACTION ALERT: ASK CONGRESS TO STOP IMF/WB INTERFERENCE IN MOZAMBIQUE

[Robert Weissman]

ACTION ALERT
Wednesday, April 4

Friday, April 6, is the deadline for Members of
Congress to sign the attached letter from
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to U.S. Treasury
asking that the U.S. use its influence with the
IMF and the World Bank to stop these institutions
from obstructing Mozambique's efforts to
rehabilitate its cashew nut processing industry.

Please ask your Member of Congress to sign the
following letter being sent to the U.S. Treasury
department by Representative Cynthia McKinney. The
Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121.

To sign on, offices should contact Jonathan
Fremont in Rep. McKinney's
office at 225-1605 by Friday, April 6th.

---

Paul H. O'Neill
Secretary of the Treasury

Dear Secretary O'Neill:

As you are no doubt aware, in the last several
years Members of Congress on both sides of the
aisle have become increasingly dissatisfied with
the policies promoted and imposed by the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in
developing countries, using U.S. tax dollars.

One particular case stands out: for the last
several years, the IMF and the World Bank have
undermined Mozambique's efforts to rehabilitate
its cashew nut processing industry. As a result,
thousands of workers have lost their jobs in an
industry that was once one of the largest private
sector employers. Production has shifted to India,
which uses child labor to shell the nuts.
Ironically, the United States is a major market
for processed cashew, so that as a result of the
IMF/World Bank intervention, U.S. consumers are
subsidizing child labor. For years the World Bank
persisted in pressuring Mozambique to remove
support for its cashew
industry, despite opposition to the World Bank
policy by Mozambique' s democratically elected
parliament and despite the fact that a study
commissioned by the World Bank indicated that the
World Bank's policy was unsound.

Last year, the new head of the IMF, Horst Köhler,
promised that IMF policies would change, that the
IMF would stop imposing policies on developing
countries that have nothing to do with the IMF's
core mission.

Unfortunately, like so much rhetoric in the past
concerning "reform" at the international financial
institutions, it is far from clear that the
change in rhetoric has been matched by a change in
reality. Recent reports indicate that the IMF is
still pressuring Mozambique to remove support for
its cashew industry.

We regard the IMF's continued obstruction of
Mozambique's democratically determined economic
development policies to be an abuse of the
authority and resources granted to the IMF by the
United States. We ask you to instruct the United
States Executive Directors at the IMF and the
World Bank to communicate that it is the policy of
the United States that the IMF and the World Bank
should cease obstructing Mozambique's efforts to
rehabilitate its cashew industry.

Please keep us apprised of your efforts in this
regard.

Sincerely,


Cynthia McKinney
Member of Congress

Bernie Sanders
Member of Congress

Peter DeFazio
Member of Congress

Lane Evans
Member of Congress

Rob Andrews
Member of Congress

Eleanor Holmes Norton
Member of Congress