PHA-Exchange> for posting - Multilateral Institutions Taken Hostage Eric Toussaint / Damien Millet

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Eric Toussaint
cadtm at skynet.be
www.cadtm.org
 
-----Original Message-----
From: éric toussaint [mailto:cadtm at skynet.be] 
Sent: dimanche 17 avril 2005 12:37
To: 'cadtm at skynet.be'
Subject: Multilateral Institutions Taken Hostage Eric Toussaint / Damien
Millet
 
 
On line :  <http://www.cadtm.org/article.php3?id_article=1316>
http://www.cadtm.org/article.php3?id_article=1316
 
Best,
Eric Toussaint
cadtm at skynet.be
www.cadtm.org <http://www.cadtm.org/> 
 
Multilateral Institutions Taken Hostage (1)
By Damien Millet and Eric Toussaint (2)
 
The conservative offensive within the multinational institutions has
scored a few points in recent months.  People like us who are trying to
put across a different logic cannot afford to rest yet awhile.  On the
other hand, such frustrations nourish the fighting spirit.   
 
Scene 1: on 18 January 2005, Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the
United Nations (UN), decided to appoint Ann Veneman, Minister of
Agriculture in the Bush Administration, as Executive Director of UNICEF.
The USA and Somalia are the only two countries who refused to ratify the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (189 countries did
ratify it). One can well imagine the pressure Washington put on Kofi
Annan to get him to make such a decision. 
 
Scene 2: on 28 February 2005, Kofi Annan decided to appoint Supachai
Panitchpakdi (Thailand) as General Secretary to the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), for four years as of 1st
September.  This appointment is somewhat surprising, considering that
the man they call "Dr. Sup" is at present the head of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO), the favourite instrument of those who wish to
forcibly impose the deregulation of the global economy, to the greater
profit of international finance and trans-national corporations. UNCTAD,
which defends the point of view of the countries of the South, has
nothing to gain by having at its head a man who has consistently
demanded particularly unfavourable economic measures for the poorest
countries.  Third World countries, under the G77 banner, have protested
at not having been consulted, as they usually are, before this
appointment was made.  However rumour has it that Kofi Annan, his
position weakened by the "food for oil" revelations about Iraq involving
his son, gave in easily to the United States. 
 
Scene 3: on 7 March 2005, George W. Bush chose John Bolton as the US
Ambassador to the United Nations.  This man tried to have Mohamed
ElBaradei sacked when ElBaradei was the director of the UN institution
in charge of the Iraq disarmament programme, just before the war in
2003. It was Bolton who was responsible for the fact that the United
States did not ratify the International Criminal Court; and he it was
who withdrew from the United Nations Conference on Racism in Durban in
August 2001.  Bolton considers that the UN should on no account impede
US foreign policy.  He even went so far as to declare: « Now more than
ever the United Nations needs American leadership”[1].  At least his
positions are perfectly clear, if not particularly endearing.  His
hostility to the UN is so well-known that a significant number of
American Congressmen (including some Republicans) tried to oppose the
appointment. 
 
Scene 4: on 10 March, George W. Bush announced his decision to propose
Paul Wolfowitz, Number 2 in the Pentagon and a fervent advocate of the
invasion of Iraq 2003, as candidate for the presidency of the World
Bank.  There is no doubt that this is the finishing touch to the events
of recent weeks. 
To begin with, the procedure for designating the president of the World
Bank is particularly antidemocratic.  It is emblematic of an imperialist
conception of diplomatic relations.  Whereas good governance is at the
heart of the World Bank's recommendations to countries of the South, the
Bank itself proves unwilling to respect even the most basic rules of
democracy.  Do as I say, not as I do!  Things have become so dire that
the incumbent president, James Wolfensohn, a New York banker of
Australian origin, had to take US citizenship before being appointed in
1995.
 
To listen to the officials of the World Bank, you would think that the
sinister structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s were a thing of
the past, and that combating poverty has become the only worthwhile
cause.  Yet the World Bank's policies over the last few decades have
faithfully and unfailingly obeyed a perfect logic.  And that logic
always and exclusively benefits the major powers who founded the Bank at
Bretton Woods in 1944 (before most African and Asian countries had
achieved independence) and who have never taken their hands off the
wheel.  This explains why the presidency always falls into the hands of
big bankers or former US Defence Secretaries.  The tradition was already
established in 1968 with the appointment of Robert MacNamara, who
conducted the Vietnam War and used the World Bank as a geo-political
tool to help the United States' strategic allies.  During the first five
years of MacNamara's presidency, the World Bank granted more loans to
developing countries than in the previous 23 years of its existence.
The aim was to acquire the right to oversee policies conducted by its
clients.  This was how he supported the USA's strategic allies (such as
Mobutu of then Zaire, the Brazilian and Argentine dictatorships,
Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philippines,
etc.). There is no doubt that Wolfowitz will follow the line of this
kind of president, using the World Bank for geo-political ends.
 
Officially, all the World Bank administrators could block the proposed
appointment.  This has already happened at the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), where the Managing Director is always a European.  In 2000,
when the Frenchman Michel Camdessus left office, the German Finance
Secretary of the time, Caio Koch-Weser, who was the European candidate,
was vetoed by the USA, and the Europeans finally agreed on Horst Köhler.
Yet at the World Bank, the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz won unanimous
approval, proving that the 24 groups of countries represented are
perfectly happy with it.  It is worth noting that most European
countries are hoping that the United States will return the favour.  The
French government is manoeuvring to get Pascal Lamy elected Managing
Director of the WTO and Bernard Kouchner to take over the High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR); the Belgian government is pushing
forward Marc Verwilghen's candidature for the same post; the British are
angling for the United Nations Programme for Development.  Not to
mention the countries that want the US support in getting a permanent
seat on the Security Council: Germany, Japan, Brazil, India, South
Africa, Nigeria… However unethical, the intense bargaining never ceases.
 
How is it that the presidency of the World Bank has never been entrusted
to a Third World citizen, in the front line against the challenges of
human development? Indeed, Joseph Stiglitz, a former Number Two of the
World Bank and Nobel prize-winner for Economics in 2001, declared: «
Choosing the right general in the war on poverty cannot guarantee
victory, but choosing the wrong one increases the risk of defeat».  The
only explanation for this choice is that the real war is not on poverty,
despite the official discourse of those who, even as they speak,
continue to impose policies which spread destitution.  
 
The legitimacy of multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and
the IMF is called into question.  The events of the last few months
demonstrate beyond any shadow of a doubt the crying need for a different
international architecture!
 
(1) This opinion was published (in French and in an adapted form) by the
Belgian daily Le SOIR on 16 April 2005, under the heading « Des
institutions multilaterales prises en otage » (Multilateral Institutions
Taken Hostage) in the Forum column.
 
(2) Damien Millet is president of CADTM France, Eric Toussaint is
president of CADTM Belgium (Committee for the Abolition of the Third
World Debt).  They co-authored the book "Who Owes Who?" published by
Zedbooks, London, 2004 and “The Debt Scam” published by VAK, Mumbai,
2003.    CADTM Site : www.cadtm.org
 
 
Translated by Vicki Briault Manus CADTM France
 
 

  _____  

[1] Financial Times, 12 avril 2005


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