Beware of IMF and World Bank Strategies

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Debt keeps Third World Countries under control.

They make them dependent on aid (like Haiti), loan reschedulings, and debt rollovers to survive and develop.

They are forced to restructure their economies and rewrite their laws to meet conditions laid down in IMF "Structural Adjustment Programs" and World Bank conditionalities..Corrupted leaders are happy to take on additional debt for poorly planned and inflated projects (6billion for a La Gonave Island resort is an example of an inflated project, Haiti will not see a proportionate return on that kind of investment,, another example of an inflated project is the 55 million parking garage in Port-au-Prince, Haitians can build 55 parking garages for that kind of money and does an oil refinery really cost 1billion dollars ).

The loan money that get stolen by corrupted leaders flow right back to a first world bank while the debt must be repaid by their countries citizens long after they are gone. When IMF get a Third World Country to abolish tariffs on food imports, the result is a flow of imported food from the US, Canada, or EU that will destroy the livelihoods of local farmers.

For instance Haiti was flooded with cheap frozen chicken parts, therefore there is no reason for local farmers to develop a poultry industry.

Those frozen chickens were mostly injected or fed growth hormones that are bad for a person's health.

When IMF get a Third World Country to abolish tariffs on imported clothing, cheap second hand clothing are flooded into their industry causing local firms, small businesses, Couturières, and tailleurs to go out of business.

In Peru for instance The IMF "Structural Adjustment Program" slashed the import tariffs on corn. Cheap Corn from the United States flooded Peru, many of the farmers were unable to compete so they turned to growing coca for cocaine production instead.

The United States and the European Union have been driving the prices of the traditional exports of the Third World Countries such as coffee, cocoa, rice, sugar, and cotton.

Meanwhile the prices of machinery from first world nations are increasing.

For example in 1975 a new tractor cost 8 metric tons of African coffee, by 1990 the same tractor cost 40 metric tons. Biopiracy: To ensure their control the United States and the European Unions are using what they call TRIPS "Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to shut Third World producers out of the lucrative markets, thus keeping them in commodity production.

They use TRIPS to mine local plants and other genetic resources that they can then patent, thus gaining exclusive production and sales rights.

For example Rice Tec a US Texas Company, applied for and received a patent on India's Basmati Rice, claiming that it had developed a" novel rice lines," which in fact were the same genetic lines that had been developed over centuries of plant breeding by Indian and Pakistani farmers.

To conclude a stranglehold of debt gives the First World governments and corporations control of Third World Economies.

We certainly hope that Haiti's leaders will be prudent and not fall into that trap.

Lionne Club, January 8 2008, 3:35 PM

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