Forwarded from Nestor (WB payments)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fred Feldman forwarded this piece of news:

"ARGENTINA-CRISIS Countdown For Payment Cessation in Argentina

Buenos Aires, Oct 7 (PL) The Argentine government began the week counting 
down until stopping World Bank (WB) payments.

Experts agree that this step, with the WB and its partner, Inter-American 
Bank, could be avoided with implementation of an agreement between 
authorities and the IMF (International Monetary Fund).

Buenos Aires has been trying to reach such an agreement for 10 months, but 
both constant concessions -including removal and modification of some 
national laws- have put an end to IMF leadership"s conditions."

It is interesting to explain what has happened yesterday. Simply, Minister 
of Economy Lavagna chose to defend (firmly for at least once!) the 
international reserves of Argentina, and informed World Bank that Argentina 
was not honoring the debts. The IMF, _immediately_, caved in and stopped 
requesting that Argentina pays for the debts with international reserves.

This, on the one hand, demonstrates how poor are the chances of IMF when 
confronted with a country bent on respecting its own dignity, and on the 
other hand demonstrates the unbelievable cowardice of the current 
Argentinean authorities. If the position of Rodríguez Saá in January 2002 
had been kept firm, then Argentina would have been spared the horrendous 
nightmare we are traversing now. And the IMF system would have seen itself 
in dire straits indeed.



Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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