Please return signatures with name, title, and educational institution to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Open letter in support of the World Bank Bonds Boycott December 2000 We write today as members of the academic community in support of the World Bank Bonds Boycott. A worldwide movement 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. Though few people know it, 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. As Harvard Professor Jeffrey Sachs and the global Jubilee 2000 movement have documented, 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 "stuctural adjustment" policies, which include privatization and imposition of user fees on previously public health and education systems; restrictions on workers' rights to organize and increase their standard of living; and promotion of trade 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 in its lending for dams, for the extraction of oil and gas, and for mining. In just one example, in June 2000, over 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. Moreover, and of particular concern to us as faculty of institutions of higher education, World Bank lending policies for education has led to a collapse in many African 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. And most tragically, expenditure per pupil for primary education fell precipitously between 1980-1995 under World Bank structural adjustment programs (Caffentzis "The World Bank's impacts on education"). 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 study and research. Already, 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 international endorsement of the boycott by institutions serving the public interest is generating pressure on the World Bank to align its new rhetoric of sustainability with its future policies. Universities and colleges 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 direct investments of a university or grouped in with mutual funds.) The effort does not call for divestment from currently held bonds, so universities will incur no irresponsible financial loss. 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. Signed, Dr. Joseph Adjaye, Professor, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pitsburgh Dr. Patrick Bond, Associate Professor, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Dr. Dennis Brutus, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, USA Dr. George Caffentzis, Co-Coordinator, Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) Dr. Silvia Federici, Co-Coordinator, Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) Dr. Manning Marable, Professor, Department of History, Columbia University, USA Dr. Rob Penny, Department of Africana Studies, University of Pittsburgh Jennifer N. Collins, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, USA Professor Mesbah-us-Saleheen, Department of Geography & Environment, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka - 1342, Bangladesh. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
