[stop-imf] U.S. Call on Iraq Debt Hypocritical

[Robert Weissman]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  April 11, 2003

Contact:       Soren Ambrose, 50 Years Is Enough Network: 202/285-5836 (mob=
ile)
                   Brendan O=92Neill, ACERCA: 802/598-8373 (mobile)



                                                         Protesters:
U.S. Call on Iraq Debt Hypocritical
                                                     Warn Against
Imposing =93Free Trade=94 Agenda on Iraq


                                                   Citing Example of
Latin America, Sunday Protests Target
                                                  IMF/World Bank
Meetings & Inter-American Development Bank


Debt cancellation and anti-IMF/World Bank campaigners today said the
calls by Treasury Secretary John Snow and Assistant Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz for the cancellation of debts
accumulated by Saddam Hussein=92s government are both reasonable and hypocr=
itical.

=93The people of Iraq certainly should not be forced to pay illegitimate
debts that benefitted only a corrupt few,=94 said Njoki Njoroge Njehu,
Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network.  =93The cruel
joke is that this Administration, like previous ones, has steadfastly
opposed cancellation of similar debts incurred by Mobutu in Zaire/Congo,
the apartheid government in South Africa, and dozens
of other undemocratic, corrupt, and repressive regimes.  It seems that
after the U.S. prosecutes a nearly-unilateral war to take over a
devastated, indebted country, it suddenly sees the logic of
eliminating illegitimate debts.  Millions in Africa have died while the
U.S. and its friends at the IMF and World Bank have denied that logic.
Funny how facing the responsibility of governing such a
country can change minds so quickly.=94

The news that the Bush Administration is also calling for the World Bank
to assume a major role in rebuilding Iraq has, meanwhile, prodded
activists in Washington, DC for the spring meetings of
the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to warn that those
institutions are not the solution, but in fact exacerbate problems of
poverty, environmental devastation, and international
conflict.

=93For more than two decades, the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank have imposed damaging economic austerity programs emphasizing
=93free trade=94 and private profit over basic
human rights on indebted and impoverished countries,=94 said Demba Dembele
of the Forum for African Alternatives in Senegal.  =93Now, as countries
emerge from conflict -- Bosnia, East Timor, Sri
Lanka, Afghanistan, and now Iraq -- they are forced into the same
economic system that has created poverty and suffering across Africa and
much of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia.
People in country after country are clear that they want new economic
and development approaches, not more of the same.=94

Latin America is the focus of this weekend=92s protests.  It was the first
region to be targeted by the institutions=92 macroeconomic programs, with
the debt crisis of the early 1980s spurring the
introduction of =93structural adjustment programs=94 in Mexico, Argentina,
and Brazil.  Today, after following IMF/World Bank =93advice=94 for 20
years, large-scale public resistance to the economic policies
has erupted in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, El Salvador, Brazil,
and Paraguay.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) plays a significant role in
reinforcing IMF/World Bank policies in the region, and protesters will
be stoppingn there on the way to the IMF/World Bank
headquarters.  =93We want to make sure the IDB=92s role is fully exposed,=
=94
said Brendan O=92Neill of ACERCA.  =93Through projects like the =91Plan Pue=
bla
Panama=92 it is remaking the region=92s map for the
sake of corporate profit.=94  Soledad Quintanilla, a member of
CESTA/Friends of the Earth El Salvador, is in Washington to =93expose how
=91free trade=92 puts both humans and the environment at
enormous risk.  With CESTA, she is campaigning to halt construction of
three dams in El Salvador that are part of the Plan Puebla Panama.