[stop-imf] 21 Members of Congress ask Treasury to Stop IMF-World Bank Destruction of Mozambique's Cashew Industry

[Robert Weissman]

For more information contact
Jonathan Fremont in Representative Cynthia
McKinney's office, 202-225-1605.

Congress of the United States
Washington, DC, 20515

April 26, 2001

Mr. Paul H. O'Neill
Secretary
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20220

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          Bernie Sanders
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Peter DeFazio                 Lane Evans
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Rob Andrews                  Eleanor Holmes-Norton
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Julia Carson                    Dennis Kucinich
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Barbara Lee                     Danny K. Davis
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Bob Filner                       Albert Wynn
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Maxine Waters               William Lacy Clay
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

David Bonior                  Donald Payne
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Earl Hillard                     Jan Schakowsky
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Bennie Thompson          Tammy Baldwin
Member of Congress      Member of Congress

Neil Abercrombie
Member of Congress