[PEN-L:8321] Re: curbing the power of the World Bank...

["Patrick Bond" <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Viva viva, Robert.

This is the spirit that in South Africa (as well as many other
places) translates into the slogan, "WB, quit SA!" The Bank has in
virtually every single one of its adventures here sided with rich
white folk. Many details can be provided to anyone even slightly
doubtful.

Whether we can accumulate enough such South campaigns to finally
awaken the Northern inside-Beltway NGOs to take this seriously as a
campaign remains to be seen. But I'm doubtful, because so many of
the people working around WB reform -- here I definitely don't mean
Robert's Preamble Center, the Naderites or 50 Years is Enough -- are
so damn opportunistic and ineffectual. So that means that the
US grassroots has to kick in.

Sanctions against apartheid -- and, ultimately, a deep crevice
between capital and the Boer regime -- only came about because of
earlier and simultaneous "divestment" strategies in municipalities,
states and universities. Kevin D. is absolutely right,
strategically, about translating the strategy to WB work. I hope US
comrades commit to helping him deepen this crucial line of attack...

(If anyone wants, off-list, I have a paper, submitted to the
Jnl of World Systems Research, about this problem: do we
seek fruitlessly to reform... or, better, seek to shut down... the
embryonic global state?)

Yours,
Patrick

> Date:          Thu, 24 Jun 1999 13:50:11 -0400
> To:            PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From:          Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject:       [PEN-L:8289] curbing the power of the World Bank...
> Reply-to:      pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

> Doug's posts on the Summers memo -- to the effect in the privacy of his own memo Summers was being honest about the logic of the institution he represented, and "we should face up to that" -- provoke>
> It seems to me that there are campaigns to block particular Bank projects, there are campaigns to force the Bank to adhere to its own environmental standards, and there is a fight going on about the >
> But no-one is campaigning to curb the power of the Bank, except insofar as the above campaigns can be understood as curbing the Bank's power.
>
> This is particularly troubling given that something like 65% of Bank loans are now structural adjustment loans, that the Bank's loans in health care and education are tied to things like increased us>
> What can we do?
>
> Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange suggests a campaign to get institutions to pledge that they will not purchase World Bank bonds. This seems like just the sort of thing that PEN-Lers could help with, >
> -Robert Naiman
>
> -------------------------------
> Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Preamble Center
> 1737 21st NW
> Washington, DC 20009
> phone: 202-265-3263
> fax:   202-265-3647
> http://www.preamble.org/
> -------------------------------
>
>
Patrick Bond
email:  pbond@xxxxxxxxxx * phone:  2711-614-8088
home:  51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 South Africa
work:  University of the Witwatersrand
Graduate School of Public and Development Management
PO Box 601, Wits 2050, South Africa
email:  bondp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
phone:  2711-488-5917 * fax:  2711-484-2729