[stop-imf] Why protest against IMF/Bank

[Robert Weissman]

In the craziness of last week, I neglected to send out this op-ed from the
Washington Post. Had the terror attack not occurred, and the Mobilization
for Global Justice protests proceeded, this piece would have almost
certainly been just the first among several that we would have been able
to place in the Post on IMF/World Bank issues.

--=20
Robert Weissman=09<rob@essential.org>
Essential Information
P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel: 1-202-387-8030
Fax: 1-202-234-5176
www.essential.org


Why We Protest
The IMF and World Bank hurt poor countries and undermine democracy.
By Robert Weissman

Washington Post
Monday, September 10, 2001; Page A21

For more than 20 years, people from Argentina to Zambia have conducted
mass protests against the policies of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and World Bank. Because those demonstrations have occurred in
developing countries, to which the IMF and World Bank are not accountable,
the institutions have largely ignored them. Americans knew little of the
protests and little about the policies of the institutions.

That is now changing as a worldwide global justice movement is
increasingly linking citizen movements in industrialized and developing
countries. In Washington, Mobilization for Global Justice has presented to
the IMF and World Bank four interrelated demands that follow from priority
concerns of developing country labor unions, debt campaigners,
environmentalists and other allies.

First, we call on the IMF and World Bank to open all their meetings to the
public and media. So long as the decision-making meetings of the two
institutions -- especially the regular board of director meetings --
remain secret, there is no way for citizens to know what their government
representatives are doing. So long as key lending documents of the IMF and
Bank remain secret until after approval, people in borrower countries will
lack effective input on lending programs. The U.S. Congress operates in
light of day; federal regulations are proposed for public comment before
adoption. Why shouldn't similar sunlight shine on the IMF and World Bank?

Second, the IMF and World Bank must cancel the debts owed them by
impoverished countries. Poor countries, including those that have passed
through the institutions' debt relief program, routinely spend more money
servicing foreign debt than they do on health care or education. U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on rich countries to provide $10
billion a year to assist poor countries ravaged by AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria. By what logic should the people of these same countries be forced
to transfer money to rich countries? The IMF and World Bank have
sufficient funds and assets in their coffers to undertake debt
cancellation without additional money from U.S. taxpayers.

Third, the IMF and World Bank must end policies that hinder people's
access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education and the right
to organize -- the ideologically driven economic austerity or "structural
adjustment" programs that include charges known as user fees for basic
health care, indiscriminate privatization and prioritizing exports over
production for local needs. Even small charges deter people in poor
countries from using critical services. For example, introduction of small
fees for a sexually transmitted disease clinic in Nairobi led to a decline
in attendance of 40 percent for men and nearly two-thirds for women.
Another common mandate is the privatization of water and sanitation
services -- which overwhelmingly remain in the public sector in the United
States -- despite evidence that privatization leads to higher charges,
decreased access for the poor to clean water and the spread of disease.

Finally, the World Bank must end all support for socially and
environmentally destructive projects, such as oil, mining and gas
activities, and large dams. From 1992 to the present, the various arms of
the World Bank have approved funding of more than $18.5 billion for oil,
mining and gas projects. Many of them, such as an oil project in Chad and
Cameroon, effectively channel public subsidies to large corporations.
Resource extraction projects are frequently associated with human rights
abuses and environmental destruction, as well as contributions to global
warming. Thanks to international grass-roots pressure, World Bank support
for large dams has diminished significantly over the past decade. But the
bank continues to support several large dams that force the relocation of
large numbers of people. And it has failed to follow the recommendations
of an independent commission it helped establish to ensure the meaningful
input of affected communities before dam projects proceed.

Each of these demands could be implemented if advocated by the U.S.
government. Some version of each of the demands is under consideration in
the U.S. Congress.

When pressed, the two institutions will sometimes admit they have made
mistakes. But they continue to insist their policies are necessary to
promote economic growth. During the past two decades, however, when IMF
and World Bank influence has been on the ascent, Latin America has
experienced stagnant growth, and African countries have seen incomes
plummet. The only developing countries that have done well in that time
are Asian countries that largely ignored the standard prescriptions of the
IMF and World Bank. In fundamental ways, the IMF and the World Bank
undermine democracy. Their conditional lending establishes a cookie-cutter
framework for poor countries' economic policies, irrespective of the
preferences of the populations or of national conditions.

Another world is possible. If the IMF and World Bank operated
transparently, if poor countries were relieved from the straitjacket of
debt, if the institutions did not impose user fees for health care and
other harmful policies, then countries would be much freer to pursue
different economic strategies in accordance with the democratic
determinations of their people. We share these modest democratic
aspirations with people across the globe.

The writer works with the Mobilization for Global Justice and is
co-director of the Washington-based organization Essential Action.
=A9 2001 The Washington Post Company