[stop-imf] Nicaragua: IMF Threatens to Cut Off Support

[Robert Weissman]

Nicaragua Network Hotline
January 20, 2003

(excerpted)

Topic 1:  IMF Threatens to Cut Off Support

A six-person technical mission of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) acted like typical mafia-style
protection racket enforcers in Nicaragua last week. Their
anti-democratic message was, ?Revert to the president's
original budget for 2003, or face the consequences.? In
their final press conference, members of the mission made
it clear that the changes made during the budget debate in
the National Assembly would have to be reversed if
Nicaragua was not to lose all bilateral and multilateral
aid. In its turn, loss of this support would mean that the
country would be unable to meet the requirements to remain
within the ?Highly Indebted Poor Countries? Initiative?
(HIPC).  HIPC is another con game engineered by the IMF
and World Bank to allow them to control national economies
on the ever receding promise of cancellation of part of
their external debt. ?In departing from the original
budget ? as proposed by President Bola=F1os for ratification
by the National Assembly ? Nicaragua has placed itself
outside the agreement made with the IMF,? a spokesperson
said. ?As a result it can no longer be considered to be
within the IMF program. Unless this situation changes by
February or March, when another mission will be here, then
Nicaragua will receive no support from the international
community.?

Reaction to the IMF strong-arm tactics was swift.  The IMF
most objects to the National Assembly?s reprioritization
that will allow small raises for police, teachers and
health workers.

Alejandro Benda=F1a, Director of the prestigious Center for
International Studies, accused the IMF of a ?policy of
blackmail worse than that which existed during the Spanish
colonization.? ?We have never elected the IMF to be our
government,? he expostulated. ?The Nicaraguan government
has two options ? to hand over the Nicaraguan people to
the bureaucrats, or to pack the IMF mission back onto its
plane and send it home to Washington. The IMF is widely
discredited; there are many peoples? initiatives and
ethical tribunals that have condemned it and its policies.
Its prescriptions constantly violate human rights,
imposing policies which inflict more impoverishment and
hunger, less health care and education.?

Benda=F1a?s position was strongly echoed by a united
Sandinista Front. Also accusing the IMF of blackmail, FSLN
General Secretary Daniel Ortega emphasized that the
mission?s position ?showed a complete disrespect for
Nicaragua?s national sovereignty.? Reading from a
statement prepared by the Sandinista National Council,
Ortega claimed that the amendments passed by the National
Assembly actually meant that the budget remained within
the overall IMF guidelines in any case, with the added
benefit that the proposed raises offered to the sixty-five
thousand public sector workers would put more money into
the economy and so generate more state income through
taxes and other spin-off effects.

The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) also
joined the chorus of criticism. In a strong statement,
CENIDH maintained that, ?Since 1990, a succession of
Nicaraguan governments has made agreements with the IMF on
the backs of the Nicaraguan people. None of these has led
to any improvement; rather the overall quality of life for
the majority has been constantly deteriorating. The
Nicaraguan people are the victims of a new dictatorship,
that of the IMF, which imposes fundamentalist economic
models through authoritarian and anti-democratic means.
These models serve only to deepen our dependence and
under-development. We call on President Bola=F1os to act
with firmness and dignity; he must not allow the IMF to
continue to act in this arrogant manner.? CENIDH further
issued a call for the creation of alternative proposals to
set over against the ?blackmail and pressures of the
multilateral organizations."


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