----- Original Message ----- forwarded From: "heikki sipil� " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >From: New Worker Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I have had quite a few requests for the packet of info from our Czech comrades. It seems that lots of New Worker readers will be there! :-) Below is a copy of a special edition of Postmark Prague edited by our comrade Ken Biggs who lives in Prague. It will be distributed to overseas visitors by KCSM members. Richard. WELCOME TO PRAGUE! STOP THE IMF! POSTMARK PRAGUE No.316 Founded in Prague, Czechoslovakia, June 1991 Vol.10 No.7 * SEPTEMBER 2000 CAN THE IMF BE REFORMED? The question of the day is: Can the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) be reformed? Can they be transformed into democratically controlled institutions serving the interests of the majority of the world's people? Young radicals like the Czech student Alice Dvorska, press spokesperson of the Initiative against Economic Globalisation, are clear: "They are unreformable institutions representing the interests of transnational capital." But some more established theoreticians on the Left (and also even on the Right) are calling for reform of the world's financial institutions. They're right to a certain extent: there's nothing in the world that can't be changed. But the reformability of any kind of institution is limited by the nature of its role. If the role of the IMF and WB is to enforce global capital's domination, then the only reforms possible are those which allow them to enforce its dominance more effectively. * Can a tiger be made into a vegetarian? The most drastic forms of pauperisation can be modified on the principle that you don't milk a milch cow dry. But that's all. Any attempt to fundamentally change the character of these institutions - by transforming them into democratically controlled institutions serving the interests of the majority of humanity - is like trying to turn a tiger into a vegeterian. It's just not on. The tiger's stomach simply can't cope with a vegetable diet. Its organism is structured for hunting and meat-eating, and if a tiger's a tiger, he has to have his meat. For example, the IMF and the World Bank talk about "cancelling" the debts of the poorest countries. But when we get down to the nitty-gritty, we find that they will only agree to this if the usual IMF conditions are accepted: more privatisation, including privatisation of public services, and more cuts in public spending - i.e. further closures (in the poorest countries!) of cash-strapped institutions providing health care and education etc. * Private ownership The IMF's organism is geared to maximising the profits of transnational corporations which want the rest of the world completely privatised at knock-down prices. For the IMF to be capable of behaving otherwise, it would have to become a totally different organisation. The deeper meaning of the struggle against the IMF, the World Bank and globalisation is that it is a struggle against private ownership which inevitably leads to concentration of capital in the hands of transnational corporations, on the one hand, and to mass poverty, on the other. The leaders of the IMF won't agree to this, no matter how often they say they want to help the poor. *This is an abridged translation of an article by Norbert Stary which appeared in the Czech left-wing daily Halo Noviny on August 23. THE RICH GET RICHER, AND THE POOR.? The Prague-based World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which represents more than 400 million members, characterised the results of IMF/World Bank policies like this at its 14th Congress in New Delhi in March of this year: As we enter a new century and a new millenium, the working people and their trade unions all over the world are confronting a worsening world economic and social situation. Economic disparities between the rich and poor countries as well as between rich and poor people within countries have vastly increased. The social consequences of the worsening economic crisis and financial turmoil undermine economic security, social standards and basic human rights. � Millions have lost jobs and millions more are threatened with total deprivation of their means of livelihood. One-third of the world labour force is either unemployed of under-employed. � Mass poverty is increasing everywhere and has become all the more widespread as the financial crisis in East Asia and its worldwide repercussions resulted in the cutting of global output by an estimated 2,000 billion dollars in 1998-2000. Sixty countries have been getting steadily poorer since 1980. � More than one billion people are unable to meet even their most basic human needs. Over 800 million are under-nourished and hungry. Nearly 60 per cent of the population of developing countries - more than 2.5 billion people - have no access to basic sanitation and 30 per cent cannot get safe, drinkable water. As the Human Development Report 1999 issued by the UN Development Programme points out, inequality within and between nations has been rising drastically since the early 1980s. � The income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997 - up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. � By the late 1990s, the fifth of the world's people living in the highest income countries had 86 per cent of world GDP, 82 per cent of world export markets and 68 per cent of foreign direct investment, while the bottom fifth had just one per cent in each case. The OECD countries, with 19 per cent of global population, have 71 per cent of global trade in goods and services, 58 per cent of foreign direct investment and 91 per cent of all internet users. � The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth in the four years to 1998 - to more than one trillion dollars. The policies imposed through the IMF and the World Trade Organisation in favour of the transnational corporations and financial groups have destabilised national economies, worsening the problems of unequal trade and economic relations and adding to the outflow of resources from developing countries, besides affecting the sovereignty of nations, causing job losses, problems of health and educational services, adversely affecting the rights of women, etc. The IMF and WTO totally ignore Commitment 8 of the 1995 Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development "that when structural adjustment programmes are agreed to they include social development goals, in particular eradicating poverty, promoting full and productive employment, and enhancing social integration." "Have a globalised nice day!" The Czech Republic's Social Democratic government has mobilised 11,000 police and 1,600 soldiers to help keep "law and order" during the IMF/World Bank conference. In addition to army-supplied armoured vehicles, helicopters and cranes (!), 6,000 Prague police - two-thirds of its total strength - will be on conference-related duties, reinforced by 5,000 police brought into Prague from all over the Czech Republic. Since right-wing controlled borough councils in Prague are urging pensioners, schoolchildren (who've been given a week's holiday) and anybody else who can to leave town during the conference, Prague's thriving criminal community are looking forward to a bumper weekend. There will also be gangs of pickpockets anxious to relieve demonstrators of their wallets and purses on crowded public transport and during protest events. Prague's theatres are being closed for the week, presumably as part of the attempt to clear the streets and give the forces of "law and order" a clear run at "foreign extremists". * Media extremism With more than a touch of irony (given its support for IMF/World Bank extremism), it's the mostly foreign-owned media which has been busiest in stirring up xenophobic hostility to the "tens of thousands of foreign radicals" who will be in Prague for the IMF conference. Stories of an advance guard of "foreign extremists" training local opponents of capitalist globalisation in the use of Molotov cocktails and other weapons have appeared in the press. The government too has played its part in whipping up tension in the run-up to the conference, with interior minister Stanislav Gross (a former "velvet revolutionary") well to the fore. He has already publicly endorsed the action of his police in brutally breaking up several peaceful anti-IMF street protests this year, most notoriously on May Day. And on August 31 there was a well-publicised "mock battle" involving riot police, British-trained mounted police, police dogs and water cannon to demonstrate their crowd control "skills". A group of senior Czech police officers was sent on a course to the USA earlier this year "to learn the lessons of Seattle" and other protests against capitalist globalisation. The globalised FBI has recently opened an office in Prague, and they and 600 other foreign "specialists" have been involved in preparing the police for their "law and order" duties during the IMF conference. * Violence There are those who would welcome violence in the streets of Prague during the conference. They plan to use it against the Left in important regional and Senate elections which take place shortly after the IMF conference (in November) and to support the idea of a ban on left-wing and militant trade union organisations. So beware of provocateurs! This is a special IMF conference edition of Postmark Prague, a 16 page monthly English-language review of political developments in the Czech and Slovak Republics, which aims to promote international solidarity with Left, working class and other social movements in these countries. For a free sample copy, write to Postmark Prague, PO Box 42, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic. (e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) . New Communist Party of Britain Homepage http://www.newcommunistparty.org.uk A news service for the Working Class! Workers of all countries Unite! ================ Macdonald Stainsby. Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. http://www.egroups.com/group/rad-green [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------- http://www.geocities.com/leninist_international/ http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
