Dublin government backs world debt-collectors
The Dublin government is this year for the first time to contribute
to the International Monetary Fund's Enhanced Structural Adjustment
Facility (ESAF). The IMF and the World Bank are responsible for
collecting the debt of impoverished states throughout the world who
carry a huge burden, which is a direct cause of poverty and death.
ESAF is supposedly aimed at helping countries to pay off their debts
but it imposes severe financial contraints on these states, leading
to cutbacks in essential services. Irish aid agencies and others
working in the Third World have strongly opposed Irish support for
ESAF. The Debt and Development Coalition is leading the campaign of
opposition and is calling for the cancellation of the debt.
Legislation to allow the Irish government to support ESAF and the IMF
was debated in Leinster House this week. Some government deputies,
including Dick Roche (Fianna Fáil, Wicklow) harshly criticised ESAF
yet went on to support the Bretton Woods Agreement (Amendment) Bill.
Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin spoke against the Bill. We carry
here the text of his speech.
I wish to speak briefly in opposition to this Bill as I regard it as
taking this State in a new and negative direction in our handling of
the issue of debt, development and aid to the majority of
impoverished countries in the world.
I listened with interest to the contributions of deputies, including
Deputy Roche, who offered us sound reasons for rejecting this Bill,
and yet states he is still going to vote for it. As Deputy Roche
prescribes, the minnows should indeed give a little leadership.
Progressive Irish opinion and tragic international need demands it.
The minnows should vote against this Bill. I for one will both speak
against it and vote against it.
This Bill takes us a further step away from independence in foreign
policy. It should be rejected because it provides for contributions
from this State to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility of the
International Monetary Fund. There is very little knowledge and even
less debate in this country about the role of the IMF and ESAF.
I commend the Debt and Development Coalition for highlighting the
reality of the debt crisis and the role of the World Bank, the IMF
and ESAF in compounding that crisis and thereby causing untold misery
to millions throughout the world. The Coalition is comprised of
organisations and individuals who have worked for justice and
development throughout the world. They are better placed than anyone
else in this country to assess the real human impact on the ground of
policies devised in boardrooms and parliaments far away from the
impoverished communities who bear the brunt of the debt crisis.
As the Debt and Development Coalition has pointed out the aim of the
IMF and ESAF is not to reduce poverty but to reduce budget deficits.
Human needs and the social impact of IMF policies are secondary
considerations, where they are considered at all.
Conditions laid down by the IMF for borrowing countries are so
onerous that over three quarters of programmes break down. ESAF works
to a monetarist agenda dealing with Ministers for Finance and
Governers of Central Banks in indebted countries. There is no
democratic accountability. In spite of the aspirations in Minister
McCreevy's speech ESAF remains unreformed yet he wishes to associate
us with this programme which is compounding the problems of indebted
countries.
Instead of tying us to ESAF this government should be taking a
political initiative and joining those countries who are calling for
the cancellation of all outstanding debts owed by developing
countries.
This call was made by the President of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams when he
visited Mexico last year. He noted then that the debt issue only
became a crisis for the wealthier Northern hemisphere governments
when Mexico declared it could no longer meet its repayments in 1982.
The fact that for many years a blanket of poverty had descended on
Latin America because of debt concerned Northern hemisphere bankers
less than the prospect of a global financial crisis caused by
developing countries defaulting on their loan to the IMF and the
World Bank.
At present the majority of developing countries are locked in a
vicious cycle of debt which denies them the opportunity to improve
the quality of life of those in greatest need in our world. The voice
of Ireland should be on their side, joining with them in the demand
for cancellation of the debt and a hopeful beginning of the new
millenium. In appealing to the Minister for Finance to reconsider
this ill-conceived piece of legislation I urge him to heed the words
of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund:
``Hundreds of thousands of the developing world's children have given
their lives to pay their countries' debts, and many millions more are
still paying the interest with their malnourished minds and bodies.''
50 year sentence for Salinas
By Stephen Mahony
Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican President Carlos
Salinas, who now lives in self imposed exile in Dublin, was jailed
for 50 years on 21 January in Mexico City for ordering the
assassination in 1994 of prominent politician Jose Francisco Ruiz
Massieu. The trial, which lasted four years, was seen by many as the
most important test of the Mexican judiciary in modern times. The
verdict breaks the long standing taboo in Mexican society of not
convicting relatives of powerful politicians.
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was a leading politician in the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled the country since
1929 under various names, and was allegedly seen by Raul Salinas as a
threat to his family's political power.
There was also, said the prosecution, bad blood between the two
stemming from Ruiz Massieu's divorce from Salinas' sister. At the
time of the assassination Raul Salinas was a mid-level bureacrat in
CONASUPO, which is th egovernment agency responsible for subsidising
food for Mexico's poor, yet he managed to accumulate a multi million
dollar fortune. Raul Salinas has come to symbolise the corruption in
Mexican society which along with unsound economic policy decisions
eventually led to the 1994 devaluation of the Peso, an economic
decision the country is yet to recover from.
Salinas's defence team has lodged an appeal against the decision.
Raul consistently claims he is being framed in an elaborate vendetta
against himself and his brother.
No jury was used in the trial, nor were any witnesses questioned in
open court, which is standard practice in the Mexican legal system.
Instead, the trial was conducted by building a written record of
testimonies and documentary evidence which reached 140,000 pages by
the end and it was on these pages that federal district judge Ricardo
Ojeda Bohorquez, based his decision. Salinas's lawyers claim the
evidence is a mixture of hearsay and lies and have accused the
attorney general's office of paying witnesses, which the former
attorney general had done. In defence of his decision judge Ojeda
stated that although there was no ``confession or direct proof'' the
evidence against Salinas ``wove together in a direct way''. Salinas
still faces charges of illegal enrichment, alleged bribes, aiding
drug smugglers and misusing public funds and this chapter in Mexico's
history is likely to continue into the next century.
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