Bush will authorise this month the State assassination of Hugo Chávez

By Heinz Dieterich. Translated from Spanish by Ron Ridenour

ct 4, 2006, 14:14

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_23158.shtml

1. The price of his anti-diabolical discourse

Hugo Chávez’s United Nations speech was the culmination of magisterial international vanguard politics, which converted George Bush into the pariah of the worldwide institution. The price for this successful spectacle –which can not be understood without the proverbial audacity of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro– is the authorisation of State assassination by the White House.

2. Strategic change: the institutional entanglement of political assassination

The fascist government-in-formation will not use as its legal basis for the assassination the customary verbal formula applied by United States executives for such ends –“get rid of him”– rather, it will use the terminology, “Top secret presidential finding”.

Most probably it will use proxies; for example, death squads of the Israeli secret services, which habitually assassinate citizen “enemies” in other countries.

The decision of State assassination [of the president of Venezuela] constitutes a change in White House strategy, employed since 2003, which opted for a political war of annexation by wearing out, in order to impose upon the system the replacement of the president by the right-wing of the New Political Class (NPC). This strategy aspires to gradually capitalise upon the internal weaknesses of the revolution and avoid a civil war in Venezuela, which will inevitably be unleashed with the assassination of the popular president.

Not to repeat the consequences of the State assassination of the Colombian President Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, has been the slogan of the White House since the defeat of the 2002-3 oil coup d’état in Venezuela. Nevertheless, the incessant Latin American and worldwide diplomatic offensive of Hugo Chávez –which not only threatens the Monroe Doctrine but also “Manifest Destiny”, which has ruled for two centuries– has reached the point of no return. Chávez’s offensive is the equivalent of the decree of Bolívar’s “war to the death” against the Spanish empire 193 years ago.

3. How to achieve the assassination and avoid popular resistance

The change of US strategy –from containment policy towards Cuba and Venezuela, while breaking the weakest link of the chain, Bolivia– towards State assassination has to resolve the danger of social explosion. The White House calculation is to avoid a long civil war by making it appear that the assassination would be a natural death or an accident. The successful poisoning of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is the model to emulate.

In September 2003, the Israeli security cabinet publicly declared its intention to assassinate Arafat. The then Vice-Premier Minister Ehud Olmert generated a public debate regarding this project by considering this method “legitimate”.

“The question is, by which manner do we put an end to Arafat,” said the Israeli State’s number two man. “Expulsion is one option; assassination is another possibility.” Israel’s problem in applying the option of the elimination of Arafat consisted of the dilemma, “(it) is not a moral matter, rather to know if it is practical or not.”

Following that successful operation would the fascist presidents Ehud Olmert and George Bush doubt for one second that the “removal…of the obstacle to peace” is extremely “practical” and “legitimate”? That is to say, that Hugo Chávez is a peaceful oil rich and third world leader [and thus an “obstacle”, translator’s note].

4. Hugo Chávez’s great offensive has discovered his dangerous rear guard

With all the audacity and success of the Venezuelan president’s offensive one is reminded of the great offensive of Napoleon against Moscow. Napoleon only looked forward, dreaming of a decisive lightning war. He failed to construct a rear guard capable of detaining an eventual Russian counter-offensive. When such occurred, he was completely destroyed.

The dangerous dispersion of the Bolivarian forces in Venezuela presents a similar scenario. The Bolivarian union movement is divided into, at least, four major currents. Official Bolivarian political forces rest on three major parties. The peasants have, at least, two major groupings. The popular sector is not organised into an integral national structure, such as, for example, in Cuba. The consolidation of the Bolivarian project in the armed forces requires, at least, two to three more years. The Bolivarian means of communication are insufficiently efficient. Many strategic State ministries are inefficient; partly so because in the last three years there have been six changes of ministers and vice-ministers, making quality State management impossible.

The quantitative dispersion of the Bolivarian forces offends, because many have the habit of using factious power plays, which converts the revolution and the party into second place. Hugo Chávez wants to remedy this poor political practice by forming one united political party next year. Minister William Lara hopes to convert Channel 8 into a 24-hour news service like CNN. Who knows if they will succeed, because until now the State has not had the capacity to develop a system to detect revolutionaries to control the media and the vanguard, which is required for the future process.

A frontal confrontation with the most potent world power and its European Union accomplices, in these conditions, will only be victorious if they have the talent and the luck of Alexander the Great. Or if they extend the spirit, the work and the vanguard management capacity not only on the visible front but also in the Achilles Heel of the revolution.

---

Heinz Dieterich Steffan is a German political analyst, living in Mexico. Well known for his apologetics, he collaborates with revolutionary media and adds his voice as a regular columnist to Axis of Logic. He is also a consultant to Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez Frìas.

The US-born anti-imperialist writer Ron Ridenour is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. He lives exiled in Denmark and is the author of “Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn”, “Yankee Sandinistas”, “Cuba at the Crossroads”, “Kuba: ein `Yankee´ Berichtet”; “Cuba: Beyond the Crossroads”. He is also co-author of additional books.

Tentang Kinerja BUMN

Oleh: Revrisond Baswir

ROL - Senin, 02 Oktober 2006

http://www.republika.co.id/kolom_detail.asp?id=266782&kat_id=15

Penilaian kinerja BUMN yang berlangsung selama ini setidaknya memiliki kelemahan dalam tiga hal. Pertama, tolok ukur penilaian kinerja BUMN cenderung berwatak kapitalistik. Padahal, sesuai amanat Pasal 33 UUD 1945, penyelenggaraan perekonomian Indonesia harus dilakukan berdasarkan demokrasi ekonomi. Artinya, penilaian kinerja BUMN pun seharusnya dilakukan berdasarkan paradigma demokrasi ekonomi tersebut.

Tetapi karena tolok ukur kinerja BUMN telanjur berwatak kapitalistik, dilakukannya penilaian kinerja BUMN dengan menggunakan tolok ukur keuangan sebagaimana pada perusahaan-perusahaan kapitalistik menjadi sulit dielakkan. Artinya, jika BUMN diibaratkan seekor sapi, penilaian kinerjanya cenderung dilakukan dengan menggunakan tolok ukur kinerja seekor buaya.

Pangkal masalahnya terletak pada terdapatnya perbedaan orientasi yang sangat besar antara kapitalisme dengan demokrasi ekonomi. Kapitalisme berorientasi pada pemupukan keuntungan individual. Sedangkan demokrasi ekonomi lebih mengutamakan kemakmuran masyarakat di atas kemakmuran orang seorang.

Berangkat dari perbedaan orientasi tersebut, cara pandang terhadap kinerja BUMN dengan sendirinya berbeda secara diametris. Dalam pandangan kapitalisme, keuntungan sebuah BUMN dipatok berdasarkan suku bunga bank. Jika tingkat keuntungan sebuah BUMN lebih rendah daripada tingkat suku bunga bank, maka langsung akan muncul pertanyaan, ''Buat apa punya BUMN?''

Dari sinilah bermulanya gagasan untuk menjual BUMN. Padahal, jika kinerja BUMN terus menerus dinilai dengan tolok ukur kinerja kapitalistik, hal itu tidak hanya akan mendorong dilakukannya privatisasi BUMN, tetapi juga akan mendorong dilakukannya peningkatan efisiensi BUMN dengan menghalalkan segala cara.

Kedua, jika pada tingkat paradigmatik telah terjadi kesalahan yang cukup mendasar, keberadaan UU BUMN sebagai pedoman dasar penyelenggaraan BUMN menjadi perlu dipertanyakan. Artinya, sebagaimana dialami oleh UU No. 20/2002 tentang Kelistrikan, sejauh manakah UU BUMN telah disusun sesuai dengan amanat Pasal 33 UUD 1945?

Sejauh yang saya pahami, cara pandang UU BUMN terhadap keberadaan BUMN dalam sistem perekonomian Indonesia memang cenderung bertentangan dengan Pasal 33 UUD 1945. UU BUMN melihat BUMN terutama sebagai entitas bisnis. Padahal, dalam Pasal 33 UUD 1945, keberadaan BUMN terutama didasarkan atas adanya pengakuan terhadap cabang-cabang produksi yang penting bagi negara dan yang menguasai hajat hidup orang banyak, yang harus dikuasai oleh negara.

Artinya, jika panduan penyelenggaraan BUMN pun sudah tidak jelas orientasinya, sebenarnya tidak terlalu sulit untuk menarik kesimpulan bahwa salah urus pengelolaan BUMN pada dasarnya berlangsung secara makro, tidak hanya secara mikro pada tingkat masing-masing BUMN.

Implikasinya, jika pada tingkat penyelenggara negara pun terdapat ketidakjelasan mengenai keberadaan dan orientasi penyelenggaraan BUMN, bagaimana mungkin kita bisa berharap adanya kriteria yang jelas dalam memilih jajaran manajemen BUMN. Sebab itu, alih-alih membina, tidak berlebihan bila pejabat-pejabat pemerintah tertentu lebih suka membinasakan atau menjadikan BUMN sebagai sapi perah.

Ketiga, terjadinya kekacauan institusional dalam menetapkan pola relasi antara BUMN dengan pemerintah. Berdasarkan namanya, BUMN adalah milik Negara, bukan milik pemerintah. Tetapi jika dilihat kepemilikan sahamnya, saham BUMN dimiliki oleh pemerintah. Pertanyaannya, bagaimanakah seharusnya hubungan antara BUMN dengan pemerintah dilembagakan? Saya pernah berdebat mengenai masalah ini dengan salah seorang pejabat pemerintah yang juga duduk sebagai komisaris sebuah BUMN. Dia dengan tegas menolak keberadaan BUMN sebagai perusahaan milik rakyat. Sebagaimana dikemukakannya, hitam di atas putih, BUMN adalah milik pemerintah.

Lantas saya katakan padanya, sesuai dengan namanya, BUMN adalah milik Negara. Karena negara adalah milik seluruh warga negara, tentu tidak berlebihan bila BUMN disebut sebagai perusahaan rakyat atau perusahaan publik dalam arti yang sebenarnya. Artinya, jika dilihat berdasarkan peristiwa penjualan sebagian saham BUMN di lantai bursa, apakah peristiwa tersebut memang tepat disebut sebagai 'go publik'? Atau sebaliknya, lebih tepat disebut sebagai 'go private'?

Semua kekacauan itu, hemat saya, hanya mengungkapkan cukup parahnya kesimpangsiuran dalam melihat BUMN di Indonesia. Bagi saya, keberadaan BUMN sebagai perusahaan publik tidak perlu diperdebatkan. Sedangkan kedudukan pemerintah sebagai 'pemilik' saham BUMN, tidak dapat disamakan dengan kepemilikan perusahaan swasta. Kepemilikan pemerintah pada BUMN adalah atas nama seluruh rakyat Indonesia.

Akibat kekacauan pola relasi antara pemerintah dan BUMN tersebut, mudah dimengerti bila proses pergantian manajemen BUMN cenderung simpang siur. Implikasinya, walau pun korupsi terjadi secara luas di BUMN, tetapi jika ditelusuri asal mula buruknya kinerja BUMN, tuduhan pertama justru harus dijatuhkan kepada para pejabat pemerintah yang menjadi penguasa BUMN. Dalam keyakinan saya, jika pemerintah baik, kinerja BUMN pasti baik. Sebaliknya, jika penguasa tidak memiliki misi yang jelas dalam mengelola BUMN, bahkan cenderung melanggar konstitusi dan menjadikan BUMN sebagai sapi perah, sampai kapan pun kinerja BUMN akan sulit diperbaiki.

Soal Kontradiksi Pokok

Kontradiksi pokok dunia saat ini adalah antara blueprint liberalisasi individualistik melawan skenario pemberdayaan.

Di ujung sananya, liberalisasi akan berakhir pada monopoli, karena pada hakekatnya liberalisme adalah pembebasan sebebas-bebasnya NAFSU akumulasi kapital, baik kapital finansial maupun kapital politik (kekuasaan).

Sebagai akibat persaingan yang sengit dalam liberalisme, para penguasa kapital akan membentuk kartel-kartel elitis untuk melindungi kepentingan mereka vis-à-vis kartel yang lain dalam membentuk hegemoni masing-masing. Maka akan terjadi perseteruan antar hegemoni yang akhirnya saling memakan.

Di sinilah letak permainan liciknya! Korban pertama dan utama dalam perseteruan itu tentulah pihak yang tak berdaya, yang berada di lingkar terluar kartel kapital (yang memang sengaja dikorbankan!). Korban berikutnya adalah lingkar kedua kartel. Demikian seterusnya, semakin sengit pertempuran maka korban yang jatuh semakin mengarah ke inner circle kartel. Bila pertempuran itu sudah harus memakan korban dari inti kartel, maka akan terjadi renego- siasi antar penguasa kapital untuk meminimalisir korban dari kalangan inti mereka masing-masing.

Kedua model tersebut (liberalisme dan pember- dayaan) mensyaratkan adanya kepemimpinan yang kuat. Liberalisme membutuhkan diktator seperti Bush, IMF, Soeharto, dan lain-lain untuk membuka lahan liberalisasi. Skenario Pemberdayaan pun memerlukan kepemimpinan ide yang kuat sebagaimana Chavez dan Ahmadi-Najad sebagai pelopor.

Dalam konteks kekinian Indonesia, unsur kepemim- pinan ini sengaja dilemahkan. Pemimpin yang banci dan mudah dikontrol sengaja dimunculkan dan didukung, agar kita dapat tetap menjadi KONSUMSI pertempuran hegemoni tersebut.

Sayangnya, kita ini kok tidak sadar-sadar ya, kalau sedang menjadi konsumsi. Bukannya bergotong- royong membentuk front, malah membikin peruncingan- peruncingan antar bangsa dhewek....

Indonesia's 1965-`Holocaust' Remembered

Conventional wisdom on what happened in Indonesia during the second half of the 1960s generally held leading Army officers, in collaboration with some youth organizations, responsible for Indonesia's greatest human disaster, which included the killings, persecutions and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of allegedly left-wingers. Much less known, a seminar has recently revealed, is that foreign and local academics have been used by then most powerful security apparatuses, the Kopkamtib, in the repression
during the 1970s.

"The Forgotten 1965 Holocaust of Indonesia" seminar, held on Oct. 28 by the International Institute of Social History IISG in Amsterdam to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1965 tragedy, presented a number of testimonies - all pointing to the profound impact of the tragic events.

One victim-witness, whose husband was tortured to death, related the pain of the "semantic of repression" by the interrogators; another recalled with pain a dramatic, but polite and peaceful confrontation with his father's killer who covered up the motive; meanwhile many families have lost members or faced tragic disintegration without even understanding the reasons.

Such complex experiences left the matters unresolved precisely because the state and the society are either disinterested, or largely clouded with fear, silence and ideological hatred.

No doubt, it's important for the nation to remember the tragedy. But to refer to the killings and persecutions as "holocaust", a term inherent to Nazi's historic victimization of the Jews in Europe, would only dramatize rather than contribute to the understanding of the Indonesian tragedy.

With the truth suppressed, the price of history is a tragedy concealed, not resolved. Hence, the rights of the victims and their families should be fully rehabilitated and those responsible for the tragedy, former President Soeharto in the first place, must be brought to trial.

Meanwhile, a new trend has set in focusing on how Soeharto's New Order was founded – as distinct from the events of the 1965-66 tragedy.

Ben Anderson, an old hand in Indonesian studies, recently in Amsterdam, for example, has pointed out the importance of a number of political networks as financial and intellectual resources supporting the Opsus (Special Operation) campaign to neutralize and remove the old elite. Soeharto's rise to state power, he argued, was critical with "most domestic resources (for the campaign to consolidate changes) coming (only) from the state oil company Pertamina, Frans Seda's Department of Plantation and the C.S.I.S think tank," he told Radio Netherlands in September.

The consequences of this undisclosed legacy were real, Anderson added, pointing to the role of Kompas daily in concealing the reality of East Timor during the occupation.

The transition into the New Order has also been described in a new book - despite its title - by Dutch historian Lambert J. Giebels' "De Stille Genocide" (The Silent Genocide). Using hitherto unknown sources, he featured the central role of the Opsus chief Gen. Ali Moertopo and the Dutch priest P. Beek, which has been a public secret for sometime.

Of this trend, quite independently, the latest is a study Indonesian researchers in the Netherlands have embarked on Kopkamtib's collaboration with foreign and local scientists, which started as early as 1971 as part of efforts to consolidate the new regime.

Kopkamtib's project only came to the surface as its chief, the security tsar Admiral Soedomo seven years later proudly announced "now scientifically we can measure the state of political prisoners' ideology … with the help of Dutch psychologists." (The New York Times, 12 Apr. 1978). The admiral referred to the questionnaire designed "to check them for the state of their communist ideology", which by 1976 had been used to examine 29 thousands of political prisoners of the "B Category" on the island of Buru.

Soedomo had earlier asked the C.I.A whether they had "a computer that can be set to human head" (Haagse Post 10 Feb. 1979), but got a negative answer, so he turned to British and Dutch psychologists for advise on the questionnaire method. Four universities – University f Indonesia, Jakarta, University of Pajajaran, Bandung and those of Nijmegen and Groningen in the Netherlands - were involved from 1973 to 1976 in the set-up of a database and supervision of the researches, which was also part of Dutch-Indonesia's Cultural Agreement.

But, Soedomo claimed, the questionnaire was made by members of the Indonesian Committee of National Security, Dr. Fuad Hasan (later Ambassador and Minister of Education) and Mrs. Saparinah Sadli, who took her PhD on the subject at the University of Nijmegen.

The issue had ignited student protests in the Netherlands in the late-1970s, but then University of Nijmegen Council and Dutch Institute of Psychologists NIP denied any ethical wrongdoing, rejecting the accusation of being "an instrument of Indonesia's security apparatuses".

There have been since no public response, though, from the Indonesian academics, and the new research team on Kopkamtib's project is now planning an inquiry.

In fact, the political prisoners had been subjected to a test that served the aim of the Kopkamtib. Former Buru prisoners have confirmed of being exposed to the questionnaire and had feared their answers might influence their predicament, Hilmar Farid, a member of the research team, told Radio Netherlands. Some were indeed released later than others.

Soedomo himself admitted the method had been used to select those who had to be scrutinized after being released. Indonesian psychologists were even active on the ground, reportedly traveling to Buru and questioning prisoners the admiral called "criminal elements".

The psychologists' role has thus critically shaped Kopkamtib's approach to the political prisoners.

The fact that the Kopkamtib decades ago sought and acquired scientific legitimacy for repression is a good lesson even today. It reminds the civil society the need to watch some state apparatuses even more critically as they now seek more power – just as the active role of many intellectuals and Western governments during Soeharto's transition to state power helps explain the sustainability of his three decades-long New Order regime.

In the spirit of Bandung

Southern leaders in Havana pledge to get their act together and fight for justice against hegemony, writes Faiza Rady

The 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), convening from 11-16 September in the Cuban capital Havana revived the spirit of southern defiance, long lost since the early days of national liberation struggles.

The Havana summit was opened by outgoing NAM leader Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmed Badawi, who nominated Cuban President Fidel Castro as the new head. Attending delegates approved Badawi's move with a standing ovation of thunderous applause.

This is the second time that Castro has been elected to lead NAM. Cuba chaired the movement from 1979-1983. "We are confident in Cuba's leadership of the movement. Its history tells us NAM is in good hands and will reach new heights," said Badawi.

Still convalescing from surgery, President Castro didn't attend the summit that was led by his younger brother and acting Cuban president, Raul Castro. Still, Fidel met privately with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among other heads of state.

"Fidel is walking, singing. I saw him well enough to play baseball again, almost," a smiling Chavez told reporters after meeting with Castro.

Present at the summit were several leaders who embody a spirit of defiance to "worldwide dictatorship by the United States", to use the words of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage. "The ideas of limited sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, preventive war and regime change are fascist; they are not modern theories to defend freedoms and fight terrorism," said Lage.

"US dictatorship", Lage explained, has turned back the clock to an earlier period of imperialism and foreign domination, with Britain, the world's former colonial master, in tow behind the world's lone superpower. Thus there is an urgent need to return to the Bandung principles of national independence and self-determination, Lage added.

At the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, nationalist liberation leaders of the stature of Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia declared their neutrality and independence from the camp of the two superpowers. Included in the 10- point Bandung proclamation was a commitment to national sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-adherence to multilateral military pacts, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, struggle against imperialism and foreign occupation, and the rejection of the use of force in international relations.

"The current international situation, characterised by the one superpower's attempts to control the world, shows that we need to unite in defence of the principles upon which the Non-Aligned Movement was established," said Raul Castro, blasting the Bush administration as a threat to global peace and security, in his opening address to leaders and delegates from 118 nations representing two-thirds of the world's countries.

Many southern leaders agreed, citing US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq waged under the cover of "democracy" and "freedom". US complicity with and support of Israel's war against Lebanon, and US blessings for Israel's continued occupation of Palestine also featured prominently on the summit's agenda. "We denounce the aggression against Lebanon, to whose people and government we offer our full support," said Raul, "and we must repeat our condemnation of the intensified aggression against the Palestinian people."

Victims of the Bush administration's penchant for intervention in sovereign internal affairs voiced their defiance at the summit: Ahmadinejad is currently facing a threat of sanctions following his refusal to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment programme for energy production; Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was slapped with severe sanctions because of his land redistribution programme to the poor; and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is threatened with "regime change" for the crime of being a socialist, an ideology the Bush administration considers hard-line and passé.

But it is the "new socialists of the 21st century" --Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales-- who, perhaps, best represent the new spirit of defiance to US hegemony. True to form, Chavez pledged he would defend Iran, a country that is widely slated to be next on Washington's list for a US-led invasion. "We are with you," Chavez told Ahmadinejad, "like we are with Cuba. And if the US invades Cuba, blood will flow."

As usual, Chavez made good on his promise. After the summit, Chavez clinched a $3 billion trade deal with Iran and vowed to further strengthen economic and political ties with the Islamic Republic --one among the many "rogue" states blacklisted by the US.

As for Cuba, it has been on the US hit list for the past 45 years. Short of invading the island, the Bush administration assiduously plods on to effect "regime change" in the "post- Castro" era. To that effect, the administration's self-styled Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba launched a 95-page report outlining its "transition to democracy" strategy under the auspices of transition coordinator, Caleb McCarry on 10 July. In addition to listing a host of destabilising mechanisms, the report includes a "secret annex", ostensibly outlining an invasion package.

The latest US scheme against Cuba includes the creation of five new interagency working groups, reported The Miami Herald. A highly secretive operation, it was set up shortly after 31 July, following news of Fidel's surgery. According to the Herald, three of the working groups are directed by the US State Department and sponsor orchestrated diplomatic action against the island in addition to broadcasting inflammatory anti-Cuban propaganda. The idea is to expand and improve current radio and TV broadcasts, which suffer from low viewer ratings as a result of mediocre programming and a crude capitalist sales pitch.

Another group championing "humanitarian aid" is operating under the umbrella of the US Commerce Department, while a fifth group deals with immigration issues under the Department of Homeland Security. The idea is to restrict immigration out of the island in order to create an explosive internal situation that will facilitate civil strife.

Notwithstanding destabilisation schemes, old or new, the Cubans remain defiant. They have been at the receiving end of US aggression for more than half a century. Notwithstanding the US onslaught against countries of the global south, what is important is to turn things around and revamp NAM in the spirit of Bandung, says Raul.

"Non-Alignment nowadays", said Raul, "means supporting the right of the countries of the south to take the measures needed to ensure that they have control over their natural resources for the benefit of their peoples." As representatives of two-thirds of the world's people, the Havana NAM summit therefore agreed to struggle for the right to national sovereignty, including the right to development, in the face of neo-liberal economic hegemony.

NeoLibs sucks!

World Bank Profits From Poor Countries - Report

Anil Netto

IPS – FINANCE

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34780

SINGAPORE, Sep 19 (IPS) -The World Bank receives more from developing countries than what it disburses to them says a new report released Tuesday as finance ministers endorsed a controversial new Bank plan to tackle corruption in developing countries.

The Social Watch Report 2006, released here at the annual meetings of the Bank group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stressed the need to reform the current international financial structure. Net transfers (disbursements minus repayments minus interest payments) to developing countries from the Bank and the International Bank for Reconstruction (IBRD), have been negative every year since 1991, the report pointed out.

The IBRD is now not making any contribution to development finance other than providing funds to service its outstanding claims. The International Development Association (IDA), which provides interest-free credits and grants to the poorest developing countries to boost their economic growth, is the only source of net financing from the Bank.

But these disbursements amount to only 4-5 billion US dollars a year. Taken together, the contribution of the Bank to the external financing of developing countries is negative by some 1.2 billion dollars, thus "failing to fulfil the purpose of its mission'', said Social Watch, an international network of over 400 citizens' organisations in 60 countries monitoring commitments to eradicate poverty.

Meanwhile, critics say the Bank has embarked on a public relations offensive using the good governance and poverty eradication rhetoric to mask its unpopular neo-liberal agenda of ‘deregulation', privatisation, and removal of government subsidies for essential services.

Good governance is not an end in itself, but the foundation of the path out of poverty, said Bank group president Paul Wolfowitz in his address to the annual meeting of the Board of Governors on Tuesday. ''It leads to faster and stronger growth. It ensures every development dollar is used to fight poverty, hunger and disease.'' Wolfowitz said that governance, a "much broader concept than anti-corruption'', was aimed at poverty reduction and would not be used as a new conditionality for lending.

"Governments are the key partners of the bank in governance and anti-corruption programmes, while, within its mandate, the Bank should be open to involvement with a broad range of domestic institutions taking into account the speficities of each country,'' said the Development Committee of the IMF and the Bank in a communiqué on Monday. It added that ''country ownership and leadership'' are key to successful implementation.

Yet, it was country ownership and (previous) leadership that were responsible for the Bank's complicity with corrupt regimes in the past. In the case of Indonesia, the Bank poured some 30 billion US dollars over 30 years into the coffers of the dictatorial Suharto regime. It tolerated a significant siphoning off of its aid funds, turned a blind eye to blatant rights violations there and helped to legitimise the regime. When Suharto was eventually toppled, the credibility of the Bank's good governance rhetoric nosedived.

Critics say the Bank's demand for greater transparency would have better credibility if the Bank were to improve its own transparency, carry out a thorough audit of its projects, and provide full support to whistle-blowers. A former Bank staffer, who declined to be identified, expressed doubts to IPS over the practicality of the Bank's new anti-corruption guidelines. "How are they going to put their anti- corruption teams together? Are they going to be consultants or Bank staff or civil society groups?

Some say an excessive focus on anti-corruption is simplistic and the desirable goals of good governance may be neither necessary nor sufficient for boosting development. "Our analysis seriously questions whether the governance agenda can be interpreted as a precondition for development rather than being a list of important and desirable objectives,'' said Mushtaq Husain Khan, a professor of economics, in a paper presented to a G24 briefing here, last week.

There was a real danger that the strong structural drivers of corruption are not being properly understood, he warned: "The desire to link lending and partnership with developing countries on the basis of small differences in governance and corruption indicators is seriously misguided according to our analysis.''

Reforms at the Bank would also have to address its extremely skewed voting structure that, like the IMF's, favours richer nations. The U.S. and Japan, for instance, each have one executive director with 16 and 7 percent voting powers respectively. Africa, on the other hand, has three executive directors (representing 53 countries), one of whom has less than two percent voting power while the other two have three percent each.

Though developing countries have very little power in decision-making, they are the ones that have to largely finance the administrative costs of both institutions through interest and other charges on loans, according to Social Watch. The Bank's prescriptions meanwhile have generally focused on economic work in developing countries that benefits large private firms rather than meaningful practical policies that empower the grassroots poor.

Its big-ticket projects have had disastrous effects in some of these countries and generated much grassroots resentment. Farmers in developing countries have blamed the Bank for pushing for privatisation, ‘deregulation' and ‘liberalisation' through numerous conditions attached to its loans.

In Sri Lanka, for example, development banks such as the Bank have advocated cutting subsidies on fertilisers and seeds, privatising state fertiliser manufacturing industries and seed farms, and selling off stores, mills and retail outlets. They have also attempted to introduce charges for irrigation water and to remove restrictions on the lease and sale of land given to farmers under government grants, triggering a deep crisis in the paddy sector.

"The World Bank is destroying our traditional agricultural systems and our livelihoods" said D R Jayatilake of the Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform in Sri Lanka. "This is why we are telling the Bank and the IMF to get out of our countries.'' Peasant movements, especially in Latin America and Asia, have also struggled against World Bank land reform policies.

''The World Bank is promoting ‘market assisted land reform','' said Henry Saragih, general coordinator of La Via Campesina, the international peasants' movement. He said this was done through a process of privatisation of land markets, which distributes land to the rich who can pay for it. He noted that agribusiness firms are getting more powerful while small farmers have less access to land. "Farmers consider land as a source of livelihood, culture and community life and not as a commodity,'' he said.

In many countries, Bank-funded projects have evicted rural communities from their land, benefiting transnational companies and marginalising local communities. For decades, peasants and indigenous communities have opposed mega projects funded by the Bank such as the Pak Mun dam in Thailand and the Kedung Ombo dam in Indonesia.

The bias in the process begun by the Bank on good governance is interventionist, said the Latin American Network on Debt, Development and Rights (LATINDADD) in a pronouncement distributed at the Singapore meetings. In seeking to carry out judicial reform, combat corruption, and promote reforms in public administrations, the World Bank "intervenes in democratic state institutions (judiciary, executive and legislative branches and control bodies) promoting market mechanisms in public administrations that facilitate transnational investment.''

Address to the United Nations

Rise Up Against the Empire

By Hugo Chavez Frias, President of Venezuela

Madam President, Excellencies, Heads of State, Heads of government and other government’s representatives, good morning.

First, and with all respect, I highly recommend this book by Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious intellectuals in America and the world, Chomsky. One of his most recent works, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project). It’s an excellent work to understand what’s happened in the world in the 20^th Century, what’s currently happening, and the greatest threat on this planet; the hegemonic pretension of the North American imperialism endangers the human race’s survival.

We continue warning about this danger and calling on the very same U.S. people and the world to stop this threat, which resembles the Sword of Democles over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but for the sake of time, I shall just leave it as a recommendation. It reads easily. It’s a very good book. I’m sure, Madam, you are familiar with it.

(APPLAUSE)

The book is in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German.

I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil –the devil, himself, is right in the house.

And the devil came here yesterday.

(APPLAUSE)

Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: “The Devil’s Recipe.”

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent’s statement –cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that’s their democratic model. It’s the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that’s imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I’m quoting, “Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom.”

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother –he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there’s an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It’s not that we are extremists. It’s that the world is waking up. It’s waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

The president then –and this he said himself, he said: “I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace.”

That’s true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They’ll say yes.

But the government doesn’t want peace. The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

It wants peace. But what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela –new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?

He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly.

The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision? Is this crossfire?

He’s thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.

This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, “We’re suffering because we see homes destroyed.’

The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples –to the peoples of the world. He came to say –I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.

And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?

And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, “Yankee imperialist, go home.” I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.

And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed –fully, fully confirmed.

I don’t think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let’s accept –let’s be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It’s worthless.

Oh, yes, it’s good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Evo’s yesterday, or President Lula’s. Yes, it’s good for that.

And there are a lot of speeches, and we’ve heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.

But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, September 20th, that we re-establish the United Nations.

Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility, our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.

The first is expansion, and Lula talked about this yesterday right here: The Security Council’s expansion, both regarding its permanent and non-permanent categories. New developed and developing countries, the Third World, must be given access as new permanent members. That’s step one.

Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.

Point three, the immediate suppression –and that is something everyone’s calling for –of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.

Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we’ve always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.

Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.

Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.

Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.

This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar’s home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.

Let’s see. Well, there’s been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.

The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.

And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there’s no need to announce things.

But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.

Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.

And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.

I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela’s thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.

Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said “helplessly optimistic,” because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.

As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?

What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceania. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.

We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.

Venezuela joins that struggle, and that’s why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.

And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.

And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents, in a Cubana de Aviacion airliner, died.

And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.

And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.

And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.

Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I’m here today.

But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.

And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read it. But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter –more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.

And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.

And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.

Unfortunately they thought, “Oh, Fidel was going to die.” But they’re going to be disappointed because he didn’t. And he’s not only alive, he’s back in his green fatigues, and he’s now presiding the nonaligned.

So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.

With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I’m now closing my file. I’m taking the book with me. And, don’t forget, I’m recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.

And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We’ve proposed Venezuela.

You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us, and I embrace you all.

May God bless us all. Good day to you.