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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Ong: September is global action against IFIs
By Ted Aldwin Ong
Misreadings
THE month of September is host to concerted activities against the International Finance Institutions or known worldwide as IFIs. These institutions are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (Bank) and its regional counterpart the Asian Development Bank.
The anti-debt movement all over the world will troop to Batam, Indonesia, for the International People's Forum versus the IMF and WB on September 15 to 17 on the occasion of the IMF-WB annual meeting in Singapore. The International Peoples Forum is a common space and convergence of various activities and initiatives that address issues on the role, policies and operations of these global institutions.
In line with these events, I will be featuring the issues and positions of people's movements in South countries as Philippines is counted as among countries that suffer the heavy burden of paying debts in subscription to the policies imposed of these IFIs.
The Jubilee South-Asia Pacific Movement for Debt and Development is the lead convener of this forum and the debt issue that continues to hostage South countries like the Philippines will be at the center of this forum.
For more than sixty years, the IMF and the WB together with their partner regional development banks and export credit agencies have used international finance capital to exercise control and restructure the societies of the South to serve the interests of global private corporations and the economic and geo-political agenda of the few powerful nations that control these institutions.
The resulting effects on people's lives, on communities, on the environment, and on the economic as well as political structures in the South have been profound and over the years have generated numerous resistance struggles against these institutions. The prevailing economic policy imposed by the Arroyo administration is evidence of our government's religious support on the strategy enforced by these IFIs.
Despite well-documented evidence and countless testimonies to the destruction, displacement and dispossession their policies and operations have caused, these institutions persist in legitimizing their role. In recent years they have declared themselves to be champions of "poverty reduction" and "good governance." In fact, many non-government organizations serve as conduit in the implementation of its programs.
This year, the anti-debt movement pledged to intensify people's struggles against these institutions and raise the level of international coordination and concerted action. The September meeting of these IFIs in Singapore will be an opportunity for all people's organizations, social, labor, and women's movements, farmers groups, first peoples, religious and cultural groups, community organizations, NGOs, political forces, and all concerned citizens around the world to join in mounting vigorous actions that will focus the world's attention on the destruction and human rights violations caused by the IMF and World Bank, the regional development banks, export credit agencies, and the neo-liberal global system they enforce.
These actions will identify issues and articulate demands that reflect the particular impacts of these institutions on each of our countries but will also be united on issues that are being demanded in the global arena. My column in the coming days will tackle the specific issues that, we, Filipinos must demand together with our brothers in South countries from these institutions.
Comments to tao.ssi@gmail.com
(September 5, 2006 issue)
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