PEN-L comrades, greetings, can we beg your attention for this
extremely important sign-on letter?
It's in support of the boycott on purchase of World Bank bonds by
institutions (pensions, universities, municipalities, church
endowments, etc) which we can make a socially-responsible investment
appeal to. Universities like Columbia and my own in Jo'burg (Wits) are
taking this up in coming weeks, so it is really crucial to have a long
list of economists and other academics, internationally, endorse this
call. Please read the brief letter, below, and sign on today!
(And do have a look at http://www.worldbankboycott.org if you
aren't convinced. I also wrote a Monthly Review article last July,
`Defunding the Fund, Running on the Bank,' which is on their website.)
(Or, if you disagree with the defunding strategy and bonds-boycott
tactic, take up a debate here on PEN-L.)
Endorsements of the World Bank Bonds Boycott have come from the city
councils of SF, Oakland and Berkeley, plus all the important socially
responsible investments funds, plus the most forward-looking unions
(which have control over pension investments), plus lots of other
folk.
So join us! It's one of the single best ways that in each of
our local settings, we can continue conscientisation and
movement-building, between the Seattle/Washington/Prague/QuebecCity
events. And we need all the grassroots handles we can get, to ensure
tens of thousands come to Washington in early October to protest at
the next IMF/WB annual meeting.
Thanks!
Patrick
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ACADEMIC SIGN-ON LETTER:
UNIVERSITIES SHOULD SUPPORT THE WORLD BANK BONDS BOYCOTT
Please return signatures with name, title, and educational institution
to [EMAIL PROTECTED] as soon as possible!
January 2001
We write today as members of the international academic community, in
support of the World Bank Bonds Boycott.
A worldwide movement for social and environmental justice has brought
the World Bank under increasing scrutiny in recent years. As the head
of the World Council of Churches explained in a June 1999 letter to UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan, "Their [IMF and World Bank] policies
have not only failed to bridge the gap between rich and poor and
achieve greater equality, but rather contributed to a widening gap,
the virtual exclusion of an increasing number of the poor and
widespread social disintegration."
The policies of the World Bank, and its sister institution, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), have had a profound and devastating
effect on the quality of life of millions of people. The World Bank
raises 80% of its money through bond sales to institutional investors,
including to universities and colleges like the ones at which we teach
or study. (In contrast, the IMF raises its capital from government
contributions.)
The World Bank has refused calls to grant full and unconditional debt
cancellation for the poorest countries, and the Bank continues to
collect debt service payments from these countries. Payments are often
many times more than the amount spent on health care or education.
The Bank continues to devote a large share of its lending toward
devastating "structural adjustment" policies, which include
privatization and imposition of user fees in public health and
education systems; restrictions on workers' rights to organize and
increase their standard of living; and promotion of trade, financial
and investment liberalization policies that facilitate the global race
to the bottom.
The World Bank has also lent money for projects that despoiled the
natural environment and violated the rights of indigenous peoples,
especially for dams, for the extraction of oil and gas, and for
mining. In just one example, in June 2000, disregarding the objections
of local groups and environmental and human rights organizations, the
Bank approved the Chad-Cameroon pipeline. The project will cause
severe, irreversible environmental damage as it cuts through
indigenous villages, hundreds of miles of rainforest, and several
wildlife sanctuaries.
Of particular concern to those of us within institutions of higher
education, World Bank lending policies for education have led to a
collapse in many Third World educational systems. Fewer students in
poor countries have access to tertiary education now than before the
imposition of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs in the
1980s. Expenditure per pupil for primary education fell precipitously
under World Bank structural adjustment programs. In response to the
catastrophe caused by World Bank lending for higher education
worldwide, a large student and faculty movement has been launched
demanding an end to structural adjustment, since it creates conditions
which violate their academic freedom to teach, study and research.
Already, in the US alone, the city governments of San Francisco,
Oakland, and Berkeley, California; the Communication Workers of
America, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of
America; several socially responsible investment firms, including
Citizens Funds and Calvert Group; and several churches and religious
organizations have passed resolutions or otherwise committed not to
purchase World Bank bonds. The growing endorsement of the boycott by
institutions serving the public interest is generating pressure on the
World Bank to live up to its new rhetoric of sustainability.
Academic institutions can lead by example and sign a socially
responsible investment resolution forbidding the future purchase of
World Bank bonds. (Labeled "International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development," these bonds might be the subject of direct investments
by a university, or might be grouped in with other bond purchases by
mutual funds.) The World Bank Bonds Boycott is not a demand for
"divestment" from currently held bonds, so universities will incur no
financial loss from endorsing the resolution. And even if a university
does not currently hold World Bank bonds, a resolution against their
future purchase would confirm its commitment to socially responsible
investment.
For these reasons, and because it was initiated by social justice
movements in the Third World (and endorsed in December 2000 at the
Jubilee South conference in Dakar, Senegal), we view the World Bank
Bonds Boycott as a progressive initiative. We endorse it, and
encourage readers of this letter to do the same.
Signed,
Joseph Adjaye, Professor, Department of Africana Studies, University
of Pittsburgh
Julia M. Allen, Department of English, Sonoma State University
Sérgio Almeida, Director, Federation of Engineers' Unions, Brazil
Samir Amin, Director, Third World Forum, Dakar, Senegal
Julie Andrzejewski, Professor of Human Relations at St. Cloud State
University
Rosemary A. Barbera, Assistant Professor, Social Work Department, West
Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania
Franco Barchiesi, Lecturer, Department. of Sociology, University of
the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Marc Becker, Assistant Professor of History, Truman State University
Alejandro Bendaña, Director, Centro de Estudios Internacionales,
Managua, Nicaragua
Peter Bohmer, Professor of Economics, Evergreen State College,
Olympia, Washington
Edna Bonacich, Depts of Sociology and Ethnic Studies, University of
California, Riverside
Patrick Bond, Associate Professor, School of Public and Development
Management, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Merle Bowen, Professor, University of Illinois, Champagne/Urbana and
Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
Michael Brand, Assoc. Prof. of Mathematics (ret), Essex Community
College, Baltimore, MD
Paul E. Brodwin, Department of Anthropology, Univ. of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Hank Bromley, Associate Professor, Dept. of Educational Leadership and
Policy, State University of New York at Buffalo
Dennis Brutus, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh
George Caffentzis, Co-Coordinator, Committee for Academic Freedom in
Africa (CAFA), Professor of Philosophy, University of South Maine
Aurora Camacho de Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin
American Studies, Swarthmore College
John Cameron, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, York University,
Toronto, Canada
Timothy Canova, Assistant Professor of Law, University of New Mexico
School of Law
Camille Chalmers, Professor of Economics, Université d'Etát, Port au
Prince, Haiti
Lic. María Eugenia Chaves, Ph.D.Candidate, History, Göteborg
University, Sweden
Eric Cheyfitz, Professor of English, Urban Studies, Adjunct Professor
of Law, University of Pennsylvania
Jennifer N. Collins, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science, UC San Diego
Sheila Collins, Professor, Department of Political Science, William
Paterson University
Joanie V. Connors, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of
Arkansas
Mary V. Dearborn, independent scholar, New York
Silvia Federici, Co-Coordinator, Committee for Academic Freedom in
Africa (CAFA), Professor of Philosophy, Hofstra University, New York
Dennis Fox, Associate Professor of Legal Studies, University of
Illinois, Springfield
Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and
Sociology, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Abigail Fuller, Department of Sociology, Manchester College, Indiana
Zelda F. Gamson, Senior Associate, New England Resource Center for
Higher Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Diana Huet de Guerville, MA Candidate, Environmental Studies, York
University, Canada
Susan Heald, Department of Women's Studies, University of Manitoba,
Canada
Angela Hewett, Department of English, The George Washington
University, Washington, DC
K. Etty Jehn, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia
Bruno Jetin, Maitre De Conferences En Sciences Economiques; Faculte De
Droit Et De Sciences Politiques, Universite Paris Nord, France
June Jordan, African American Studies, University of California,
Berkeley
Walda Katz-Fishman, Professor of Sociology, Howard University,
Washington, DC
Seth Kahn, PhD Candidate in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric,
Syracuse University, New York
Sarah Kerr, Masters of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto
and Sessional Professor, Faculty of Environmental Design, University
of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Serena Koenig, MD, Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gérard Karlshausen, Director, CNCD, Belgium
Bronwyn Lepore, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia
William V. Luneburg, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School
of Law
Manning Marable, Professor, Department of History, Columbia
University, New York
William Martin, Professor of Sociology, State University of New
York/Binghamton, and Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa
Scholars
Marie-Josee Massicotte, PhD Candidate, Political Science, York
University, Toronto, Canada
Catherine Maternowska, Dept of Community Health, Tulane University
School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans
David McDonald, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University,
Kingston
Robin Meader, Assistant Professorial Lecturer in English and Director
of EMSE Off- Campus Programs; Department of English, and Department of
Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, George Washington
University, Washington, DC
Mesbah-us-Saleheen, Department of Geography & Environment,
Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Daniel Moshenberg, Department of English, George Washington
University, Washington, DC
Rogate R. Mshana, Program Executive, World Council of Churches, Geneva
Steve Niva, Member of the Faculty, Evergreen State College, Olympia,
Washington
Lisa North, Professor, Political Science, York University, Toronto
Corann Okorodudu, Professor of Psychology and Coordinator of African
American Studies, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA
Kweisi Owusu, Associate, Cambridge University
Rob Penny, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pittsburgh
Ravi Rajan, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, University
of California, Santa Cruz
Ellen I. Rosen, Visiting Scholar, Women's Studies Program, Brandeis
University, Boston
Magali Sarfatti-Larson, Emerita, Temple University, Philadelphia
Raymond Seidelman, Professor of Political Science, Sarah Lawrence
College, New York
James Seitz, Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh
Stephen R. Shalom, Department of Political Science, William Paterson
University, Wayne, New Jersey
Ira Shor, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, William Paterson University,
Wayne, New Jersey
Peter Stone, Political Science Department, University of Rochester
Tod Sloan, Department of Psychology, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma
Brett A. Smith, Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies,
Macalester College, MN
Richard Stahler-Sholk, Department of Political Science, Eastern
Michigan University
Robert A. F. Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan
Buddhist Studies, Department of Religion, Columbia University, New
York
Maggie Trespasz, School of Education, Syracuse University, New York
Alex S. Vitale, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Brooklyn
College, New York
Laura Wald, Department of Clinical Psychology, University of
Massachusetts, Boston
David P. Watts, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Yale
University, New Haven
Vikash Yadav, Ph.D candidate, Department of Political Science,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Iris Marion Young, Professor of Political Science, University of
Chicago
Todd N. Tucker
Campus Outreach Coordinator
World Bank Bonds Boycott
Center for Economic Justice
1830 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-299-0020
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.worldbankboycott.org
to receive campus updates, send e-mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
