[stop-imf] Sign-on: Wolfowitz letter

[Robert Weissman]

Sign-ons to: <_wolfowitzday@yahoo.com_>

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Dear Friends,

<><>On June 1, Paul Wolfowitz, the man best-known for planning the
invasion and occupation of Iraq and promoting them as U.S. policy, will
officially become president of the World Bank Group. Civil society
organizations from around the world have been meeting via conference
call to plan a response for June 1^st . In Washington, activists will
gather outside the World Bank headquarters (18th and Pennsylvania) at
9:30 am on June 1. Actions are also being planned in the Philippines,
France, and elsewhere. If you are planning or interested in organizing
an action/protest, please contact Hope Chu (_hope@50years.org_).

Below is a letter to Wolfowitz which we are circulating it broadly for
sign-ons. PLEASE get your organization to sign-on, if they have not
already done so. Also, please disseminate and encourage organizations
within your networks to sign-on to the letter. The DEADLINE for
signatures is Monday, May 30, 6pm Eastern time North America.

We are primarily seeking *organizational* endorsements. Please include
the full name of your organization and its location -- city, state (if
applicable), and country. SEND YOUR SIGN-ON to
<_wolfowitzday@yahoo.com_>. The letter, with signers collated, will be
made available for use in media work and response by Noon on May 31^st .

Thank you

50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice

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June 1, 2005

Dear Mr. Wolfowitz:

As you know, civil society organizations around the world reacted to
your nomination and confirmation as president of the World Bank Group
with alarm. Now, on the occasion of your formal accession to the office,
we write you to make clear what we perceive as the major challenges
facing the World Bank and the governments that control it. We are
writing in the hope that you will address these issues in a satisfactory
way.

The process itself that led to your appointment itself demonstrates the
first challenge: of *democracy and accountability*. The 60-year-old
unwritten agreement allowing only the president of the United States to
choose the head of the World Bank Group is archaic and out of step with
standard norms of democratic practice. The World Bank may be
multilateral in name, but in practice it has become a tool for imposing
a development and economic model that serves the interests of a few
governments and corporations while rendering borrowing countries, the
majority of its members, all but powerless to shift the Bank, or
themselves, away from that model, or even to explore alternatives.

We anticipate that in the next five years the World Bank will set up a
committee to examine its voting structure and presidential selection
process, and that it may even make reasonable-sounding suggestions. But,
given past experiences with such processes at the World Bank, we expect
little real change. The secretive and undemocratic day-to-day
decision-making processes at the international financial institutions
weaken the credibility of the IMF and World Bank even as they profess
transparency and accountability, and demand those qualities of borrowing
countries.

We anticipate that early in your presidency you will announce your
intention to engage in consultation and dialogue with *civil society*.
But given the record of the World Bank over the last 10 years, it is
likely that millions of dollars in public funds will be spent on
processes, reports, and recommendations that will ultimately be ignored
by the World Bank, as was the case with, among others, the World
Commission on Dams, the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review
Initiative (SAPRI), and the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). The Bank
largely disavowed the results of these processes which made explicit
recommendations to improve bank procedures, and to make it more
transparent and democratic. The Bank=E2=80=99s recent controversial Joint
Facilitation Committee neither improved relations with civil society nor
made the Bank more responsive to its demands. Instead, it ignored the
=E2=80=9Cvoice of the peoples=E2=80=9D affected by Bank policies and practi=
ces.

We anticipate that the World Bank will continue to devote millions of
dollars to its *public relations* efforts. These efforts have deftly
distanced the bank from its most unpopular policies and programs while
maintaining the status quo. Over the past decade, the Bank has
manipulated the meaning of terms like "poverty reduction," its new name
for structural adjustment programs; "good governance," its new rationale
for imposing conditions on borrowing governments; and "debt relief", its
deceitful euphemism for insuring that governments continue to maintain
their place on the borrow-repay-reschedule debt treadmill.

The World Bank=E2=80=99s public relations staff now faces the challenge of
convincing people that the new president is independent of the Bush
Administration and its controversial policies. We fear that "democracy"
will be among the new buzz-words at the Bank, and the basis for a new
set of conditionalities, particularly in the Middle East. We fear it
will be used not to help create space for people to choose their own
economic systems and development models, but as a cover to impose rules
prioritizing foreign investment and market liberalization above all
else, and to disempower and discredit governments that choose to
prioritize the priorities of their citizens over corporate interests.

Nowhere will the public relations staff be more challenged than in
dealing with the World Bank's role in *Iraq*. We anticipate a renewed
politicization of the Bank, in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, in
order to increase corporate access to oil and other resources and assets
as well as markets and cheap labor. You will be asked to recuse yourself
from the World Bank/UN investigation into the U.S. government's
distribution of Iraqi development funds to Halliburton, a contract with
which you were personally involved; we hope you will do so. Ethical
questions on that issue could well be compounded by the World Bank=E2=80=99=
s
determination that Iraq's food subsidies should be eliminated -- in a
country where acute malnutrition rates for children have nearly doubled
since the invasion of April 2003. You could confound your critics by
immediately announcing that the Bank will withdraw its conclusions about
Iraqi subsidies.

We anticipate that you will talk about the need for more *debt relief*
in the poorest countries, and perhaps even publicly advocate that
President Bush co-operate with other wealthy countries to offer more
relief. We believe that such calls would be greatly strengthened if you
were to employ the logic you used in advocating for France, Russia, and
Germany to cancel the debts they claim of Iraq -- namely that loans
contracted by undemocratic regimes which worked to the detriment of the
population should be annulled. Many of our organizations have used the
same logic with regard to the equally odious debts contracted by the
apartheid regime in South Africa, Mobutu in Zaire, Marcos in the
Philippines, the military junta in Argentina, and many more. We have
never received a sympathetic hearing from the World Bank.

You have announced that you will travel to *Africa* shortly after taking
office. We anticipate that while there you will meet with presidents and
prime ministers, and declare the urgency of helping the continent. We
fear that access to Africa's oil will take precedence over poverty
eradication and sustainable development and that, once again, there will
be no material improvement in Africa's outlook resulting from World Bank
programs during your tenure. Despite an endless series of Bank
anti-poverty initiatives in the region during the last 30 years, African
per capita incomes are below their 1975 level. Only by demonstrating
respect for the people of Africa, their knowledge and their own
particular national priorities will you gain credibility on that continent.

We note that at this historical moment, Latin American countries are
disavowing and resisting the imposition of the so-called Washington
Consensus, and many Asian nations are increasing their financial
independence so as to free themselves from the dictates of the IMF and
the Bank.

Whatever stand you ultimately take on these issues, we commit ourselves
to monitoring the performance of the World Bank, examining its rhetoric
and exposing its deceptions and manipulations. We will invite others to
do the same -- governments; NGOs; and the media which have too often
paid more attention to words than actions and evidence. The stakes for
the Bank are high: its reputation is at an all-time low and its policies
continue to be a major source of poverty, violence and injustice. It is
in your hands to start the process of reversing this persistent trend.
The world is watching.

Signed: (As of May 23, 2005)

*Angola
*Jubileu 2000 Angola (Luanda)

*Bangladesh
*Lokoj Institute
CDL (Dhaka)
Organization for Social Development of Unemployed Youth (Dhaka)
BanglaPraxis (Dhaka)
VOICE (Dhaka)
Advancing Public Interest Trust (Dhaka)
Angikar Bangladesh

*Basque Country
*ESK Trade Union

*Belgium
*Committee for the Aboliton of Third World Debt (CADTM Belgium)
*
Cameroon
*FOCARFE (Yaound=C3=A9)
*
Canada
*MiningWatch (Ottawa, ON)
Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation (Victoria, BC)
Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (Edmonton, AB)
Democracy Watch
One Sky =E2=80=93 The Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living (Smithers, B=
C)
Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation (CIIAN)
Falls Brook Centre

*C=C3=B4te d=E2=80=99Ivoire
*ASBL Mieux Vivre Ensemble

*East Timor
*La'o Hamutuk - East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and
Analysis (Dili)
*
France
*Agir ici (Paris)
Friends of the Earth France (Paris)
Committee for the Aboliton of Third World Debt (CADTM France)

*Greece
*Stop the War Coalition Greece
Campaign Genoa 2001-Greece (Athens)

*Haiti
*PAPDA

*India*
INSAF (New Delhi)
PEACE (New Delhi)
Delhi Forum (New Delhi)

*Indonesia
*Yayasan HIMBA Lubuklinggau (Sumatra Selatan)

*Nepal
*South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)

*Netherlands
*ASEED Europe (Amsterdam)

*Norway*
IGNIS Foundation

*Pakistan*
Centre for Alternative Media (Islamabad)
WTO Watch Group (Islamabad)

*Peru
*Ecovida (Cajamarca)
Federaci=C3=B3n de Trabajadores del Agua Potable del Peru
*
Philippines*
Freedom from Debt Coalition (Quezon City)
Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (Quezon City)
Peace Camp (Quezon City)
Bantay ICT (Quezon City)
Integrated Rural Development Foundation of the Philippines (Quezon City)
Philippine Peasant Institute (Quezon City)
*
Portugal
*Ana Isabel Lopes =E2=80=93 University of Lisbon*
*
South Africa
*Alternative Information & Development Centre (Cape Town)
Anti-Privatisation Forum
*
Sri Lanka
*Fr. Tissa Balasuriya OMI*
*
Switzerland
*Nord-Sud XXI (Geneva)

*Thailand*
Focus on the Global South (with offices in Philippines & India as well)

*Tunisia
*RAID Attac Tunisie (Slimene)

*United Kingdom*
New Economics Foundation (London)

*United States*
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network (SEEN)/IPS (Washington, DC)
Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program (Washington, DC)
Africa Action (Washington, DC)
Sisters of the Holy Cross (Notre Dame, IN)
Feminist Aid to Central America and the Caribbean
Gender Action (Washington, DC)
Crude Accountability (Alexandria, VA)
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (Washington, DC)
50 Years Is Enough Network (Washington, DC)
Clergy & Laity Concerned About Iraq (New York, NY)
Oakland Institute (Oakland, CA)
Jubilee USA Network (Washington, DC)
Amazon Watch (Washington, DC)
Center for Economic Justice (Albuquerque, NM)
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) (Washington, DC)
Nicaragua Network (Washington, DC)
Nicaragua Center for Community Action (Berkeley, CA)
Chicago Media Watch (Evanston, IL)
Global Exchange (San Francisco, CA)
Global Justice Ecology Project (Hinesburg, VT)
Global Response (Boulder, CO)
Bend-Condega Friendship Project (Bend, OR)

*Venezuela
*Red Venezolana contra la Deuda
*
Zambia
*Kelly Inambao*

*Zimbabwe
*MDC Action Support Group