March 1998

Global Falsehoods: How the World Bank and the UNDP Distort the Figures on Global Poverty Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of The Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Zed Books, London, 1997. © copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, 1999. To publish this text contact the author at chossudovsky@sprint.ca Until the 1998 financial meltdown (“black September” 1998), the World economy was said to be booming under the impetus of the “free market” reforms. Without debate or discussion, so-called “sound macro-economic policies” (meaning the gamut of budgetary austerity, deregulation, downsizing and privatisation) continue to be heralded as the key to economic success and poverty alleviation. In turn, both the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have asserted authoritatively that economic growth in the late 20th Century has contributed to a reduction in the levels of World poverty. According to the UNDP, “the progress...

Until the 1998 financial meltdown (“black September” 1998), the World economy was said to be booming under the impetus of the “free market” reforms. Without debate or discussion, so-called “sound macro-economic policies” (meaning the gamut of budgetary austerity, deregulation, downsizing and privatisation) continue to be heralded as the key to economic success and poverty alleviation. In turn, both the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have asserted authoritatively that economic growth in the late 20th Century has contributed to a reduction in the levels of World poverty. According to the UNDP, “the progress in reducing poverty over the 20th century is remarkable and unprecedented… The key indicators of human development have advanced strongly.” The Devastating Impacts of Macro-economic Reform are casually deniedThe increasing levels of global poverty resulting from macro-economic reform are casually denied by G7 governments and international institutions (including the World Bank and the IMF);...

LONDON– Two and a half years ago France’s minister for overseas development, Jacques Godfrain, startled an international conference suggesting that “Africa is on the way to becoming the tiger of the twentyfirst century–following the pattern of the tiger economies of east Asia 30 years ago”. Few people predicted their fabulous growth rates, he observed, “Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were at war. Malaysia and Cambodia were battling communist insurrection. South Korea was still emerging from a debilitating war…but look what they achieved and now it is going to be the same story with Africa.” At the time Mr Godfrain was widely disparaged. Today, it seems, half the world is jumping on the African bandwagon. What was yesterday’s disaster continent is tomorrow’s tropical repository of unrealized, latent possibilities. President Bill Clinton may have his own reasons for taking such a long trip to Africa but his troubles at home rebound to Africa’s advantage....

LONDON–All the dons sitting around the tea table with China’s most famous dissident, Wei Jingsheng, seemed decidedly nervous and unusually quiet by the everyday standards of Britain’s most revered university. It took me a few minutes to figure out why and then I guessed if your brain is telling you that this may be the Nelson Mandela of China, future ruler of one third of the world, then a little awe and a roomful of silence are to be expected.After the tea there was the speech to students. Direct, eloquent, his 18 years in jail on a wind-swept, bitterly cold, 10,000 feet high plateau, behind him, he tore into the Chinese communist regime and to the western governments who give it so much comfort and assistance. With almost serene self-confidence he appeared to predict that his cause will triumph sooner rather than later–“every ordinary Chinese now recognises the need for...

LONDON– The most dangerous frontier of the post Second World War world was the Iron Curtain, the ideological barrier which at the command of Soviet Russia fell in 1945 from Lubeck Bay on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic. It was given its name by Winston Churchill and as Jan Morris has observed, “it separated not just states, or people or territories, or histories, but ideas” The apex, the epitome and the most public shame of the Iron Curtain was the Berlin Wall. When that was breached in 1989 we knew that European communism was dead, liberty was restored and military confrontation that came close to nearly incinerating half the planet was over. Or did we? We had not counted on President Bill Clinton’s decision 9 years later to expand the military alliance Nato, whose sole raison d’etre was this Iron Curtain, right up to the western frontiers of the...

Kejsarna i internationell politik säger gärna att det finns vissa människor som bara förstår våldets språk. Situationen i Kosovo skickar en bumerang tillbaka till dem. Ingen aktör har gjort en analys, lagd en strategi eller företagit sig något som helst före eller efter det att Jugoslavien bröt samman, som kunde ha hjälpt serber och albaner att undvika dét förutsägbara, som nu har hänt. De samma kejsare gör alltså först något när en konflikt har gått över i våld. Och våld var det enda som inte fick hända för en självständighetsrörelse som pragmatiskt-politiskt bekänner sig till icke-våld. Så mycket, alltså, för det reella innehållet i modeord som preventiv diplomati, fredsbevarande, OSSE:s konfliktförebyggande, det nya NATO och europeisk säkerhetsarkitektur och gemensam utrikes- och säkerhetspolitik i EU. Så mycket om den aktivistiska svenska politiken i Irak-frågan och bristen på diplomatiska insatser i i Kosovo-frågan. Dessa kejsare kan expandera NATO och bygga nya kärnvapen...

Kejserne i international politik siger gerne at visse mennesker kun forstår voldens sprog. Situationen i Kosovo sender en boomerang tilbage. Ingen aktør har foretaget en analyse, lagt en strategi eller foretaget sig noget som helst hverken før eller efter Jugoslaviens sammanbrud, der kunne have hjulpet serbere og albanere til at undgå dét forudsigelige, der nu med fortvivlende styrke ruller over skærmen. De selvsamme kejsere gør altså først noget når en konflikt er gået i vold. Og vold var det eneste, der ikke må ske for en selvstændighedsbevægelse, der pragmatiskt-politisk bekender sig til ikkevold. Så meget om kærnen i modeord som voldsforebyggelse, preventiv diplomati, fredsbevarelse, OSCE’s konfliktforebyggelse, det ny NATO og europæisk sikkerhedsarkitektur og fælles udenrigs- og sikkerhedspolitik i EU. Så meget om den danske fejlslagne aktivistiske udenrigs- og forsvarspolitik i Irak og ligeså fejlslagne mangel på samme i Kosovo-spørgsmålet.Disse kejsere kan ekspandere NATO og bygge nye atomvåben til ingen verdens...

“Violence closes doors and minds. Goodconflict-resolution opens them. A principled, impartial andinnovative approach is now the only way to prevent a newtragedy in the Balkans. A limited United Nations presencecould be one element in violence prevention, says TFFdirector Jan Oberg. Below you find some examples, developedby us during our work with the Kosovo conflict since 1991.We’d be happy to have your comments and your suggestions.” “Many things can still be done – but only as long asthere is no, or limited, violence. When violence is steppedup, opportunities for genuine solutions diminish.Governments and citizen around the world can take impartialgoodwill initiatives, for instance: • A hearing in the United Nations GeneralAssembly. We need to get the facts on the table,presented by impartial experts as well as by the partiesthemselves; listen actively to them for they haveinteresting arguments and question their positions,activities and policies. • Meetings all over Europe with variousgroups of...

LONDON– “Human rights is a dirty business.” So said the late Martin Ennals, Amnesty International’s first secretary-general. And once again with Rupert Murdoch, press baron extraordinaire, we have yet another instance when wealth, power and narrow, self-serving, political interest outrank freedom of speech, democratic values and anti-totalitarianism. Murdoch has stopped his publishing house HarperCollins going ahead with the publication of “East and West”, a book authored by Chris Pattan, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a highly respected British Conservative politician. “Kill the book” an angry Murdoch banged the table as he shouted at Anthea Disney, the chief executive of Murdoch’s News American Publishing in New York. Murdoch’s underlings should not have been surprised. Indeed the only question is why they signed up Patten since their boss has a long record of cosying up to Beijing and Patten has an equally long record of fighting Beijing tooth and nail...

Where Is the International Peace ResearchAssociation, IPRA, Heading? IPRA holds its 17th General Conference, this time in Durban, South Africa from June 23 to June 26.On this occasion IPRA Newsletter has carried a debate about the development and priorities of the academic discipline and its relation to the world around it. Participating in it was Dr. Bjoern Moeller, Secretary-General of IPRA and Dr. Jan Oberg, director and co-founder of the Transnational Foundation. The debate started with Dr. Bjoern Moeller who in the September 1997 issue wrote a “letter from the Secretary General”: “IPRA as an organization, and indeed peace research as a discipline, may be at a juncture where the futures of both will be decided. Peace research had a very clear raison d’etre during the Cold War, in the sense that it was to be the only academic area of study that did not take war, conflict, and arms...

“The statements and threats by European Union commissioner VAN DEN BROEK and foreign secretary ROBIN COOK are imprudent: they focus on the actors, not on the problems. When BENJAMIN GILMAN, chairman of the US House International Relations Committee talks about sanctions, sending “NATO and UN troops” to the region and supports “independent Kosova,” there is even more reason for concern. They speak the language of power and violence, not of understanding and dialogue. And it is likely to harm the Kosovo-Albanians. “The tragic truth is that since 1990, neither the United States, the OSCE nor the EU and its members have developed any policies to help the Serbs and Albanians avoid the predictable showdown we now witness in Kosovo. There is much talk about conflict prevention, early warning, preventive diplomacy and non-military security. The second tragic truth is that there has been very little intellectual innovation since the so-called end...