Canadian Human Rights Activists Point Finger at IMF/World Bank

Toronto- Downtown, limousines were backed up for a block trying to get into the luxurious Sheraton Centre Hotel, site of the World Bank-IMF annual meeting.

Uptown, at a counter-conference sponsored by church and union groups, the attendees arrived at a college auditorium by subway and bicycle.

The topics, too, had a different tone. Downtown, it was abstract - global economic woes and IMF quotas. Uptown, it was human rights and basic human needs.

The counter-conference on "the global impact of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank" drew over 300 people on each of the three night sessions.

John Foster, chairman of the Canadian Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, opened the conference with an account of a recent IMF loan to Bolivia which resulted in increasing food prices, for the majority of Bolivians and sparked a riot by Bolivian women. Social hardship and protest are "intimately linked with the IMF," said Foster, telling the audience that the purpose of the conference was to "demystify and expose to public scrutiny" the role of the IMF and the World Bank.

Speakers from Tanzania, Jamaica, and the Philippines were prominent at the uptown conference. Each of them told of a particularly harrowing experience with the IMF or World Bank.

Amir Jamal, the finance minister of Tanzania, made it clear that while Tanzania sorely needs funds, the IMF's gratuitous advice and harsh conditionality render such lending unacceptable.

Speakers from Jamaica told of unscientific IMF formulas that might apply to industrial countries but which only ran Jamaica into the ground under Michael Manley's rule.

And a nun from the Philippines drove home the point that after all the billions of dollars of World Bank assistance to that country, the poor of the Philippines are poorer than ever. "The people's rights are being trampled upon by the IMF and the World Bank," said Sister Soledan Perpinan.

Speakers from the IMF and World Bank also appeared at the counter-conference. A Canadian World Bank official said Canada would not apply human rights criteria to loans because that would be "political." This statement didn't go over too well with Canadian church representatives who do not want to see a single Canadian dollar go to Guatemala or El Salvador - whether given directly or laundered through the IMF.

The conference ended with a discussion of ways to change the IMF and the World Bank. Norman Girvan, former finance minister oil Jamaica, said that in the short-run there needs to be "reform" of the IMF, making it more democratically run. But in the long-run, a whole "restructuring of the international monetary system" is necessary before Third World countries can gain a fair say in their economic future.

This report was written by James Morrell of the Washington-based Center for International Policy. Morrell spoke at the conference about the role of the IMF in funnelling money to El Salvador.