>
>taking place April 16-17 in Washington, DC.
> Just as the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle last fall
>drew massive protests, the IMF-World Bank meeting will meet with opposition
>from a wide range of popular movements. Trade unionists, environmentalists,
>women's groups and many other forces will be in Washington to resist the
>corporate attacks on working people and the environment across the planet.
> "If the WTO is the corporate rule maker in the global economy,
>then the IMF and the World Bank are the institutions that push third world
>nations into that system," explains Mike Prokosch, from the economic
>justice group, United for a Fair Economy.
> The UFE and dozens of other organizations are mobilizing for a
>week of training and education culminating in two days of non-violent
>direct action intended to raise awareness about the IMF and World Bank and
>to disrupt their meetings (for details, see www.a16.org). From April 9 to
>15, thousands of Americans and people from other countries will gather in
>Washington for a week of education, protest and direct action training
>leading up to the April 16-17 meetings.
> "There will definitely be an action to shut down the IMF and World
>Bank meetings," Prokosch says. "The objective is to really let the nation
>know that thousands of people in this country think these institutions need
>to be shut down."
> The Council of Canadians is one group mobilizing among activists
>in this country to take part in the Washington actions. At PV press time,
>the CoC plans to have two buses leaving from Toronto for the protests; for
>more information, call the Council's Ottawa office at 613-233-2773.
> Details of the protests have not been finalized, partly because of
>the police attitude toward the actions. According to The Washington Times,
>"The Metropolitan Police Department is re-equipping and training 1,400
>officers for crowd control, stocking up on lessthanlethal weapons like tear
>gas and rubber bullets, and setting up locations to send suspects if
>officers conduct mass arrests."
> The Times quoted Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer
>as saying, "We will not put up with civil disobedience that leads to
>breaking windows, burning cars or pelting people with rocks. We won't be
>caught sleeping."
> Gainer was clearly referring to the huge protests against the WTO
>in Seattle, where no cars were burned and virtually all the violence was
>committed by police. The authorities want to frighten protesters into
>staying away from Washington, but organizers predict that thousands will
>take part despite this intimidation.
> Emerging from the post-World War II "Bretton Woods" global
>economic system, the IMF and World Bank were designed to manage the global
>capitalist economy by fostering monetary and financial stability,
>reconstructing countries devastated by war, and promoting free trade. In
>reality, their policies have increased socioeconomic inequality, destroyed
>local environments, and pushed third world nations further into debt.
> The IMF's primary activity is providing loans to countries that
>face financial difficulties. But such assistance comes with a heavy price.
>Countries that accept IMF loans or grants must agree to "Structural
>Adjustment Programs" to make them more "stable" and "competitive." SAPs
>involve drastic cuts to social services, privatization of industries and
>public assets, reduced tariffs, and other policies that benefit local
>elites, foreign investors and transnational corporations, at the expense of
>working people and national sovereignty.
> "Ruling elites [in developing nations] have their interests with
>elites in the North, not with ordinary people," says Kenyan-born activist
>Njoki Njehu. "The choice [to accept IMF loans and structural adjustment
>programs] is being made by bureaucrats and people in government. No
>ordinary person in the Third World would choose declines in health and
>education spending and increases in infant mortality."
> The IMF also mandates that the countries it loans money to
>increase exports, in order pay back their IMF loans. According to the
>American Lands Alliance (ALA), a WashingtonDC based environmental group,
>the IMF-sponsored drive toward exportoriented growth has become a lead
>factor in the destruction of developing nations' ecosystems. In Indonesia,
>the ALA states, "The government is encouraging clear-cutting and burning of
>millions of acres of ancient forests for conversion into cash crops such as
>oil palm, intended for export rather than domestic use. The result is
>rampant forest destruction with no end in sight."
> World Bank policies, like those of the IMF, often negatively
>impact Third World nations as well, Njehu says, by promoting a
>"one-sizefitsall model of development that is often destructive to people
>and the environment." Despite a stated commitment to help the poor and
>promote responsible development, the Bank funds projects such as dams and
>roads in a manner which often encourages corruption, drives local
>populations off their land, devastates the local environment and increases
>poverty.
> Njehu, who heads the "50 Years Is Enough Network"
>(www.50years.org), a coalition of 205 organizations dedicated to the
>transformation of the IMF and the World Bank, believes "development should
>be measured by social and environmental indicators, rather than by a
>country's Gross National Product or by how many roads and international
>airports it has."
> The movement against the IMF and the World Bank received a boost
>from a March 7 US Congressional report, which criticized the institutions
>for being secretive, bullying and ineffective.
> "At the entrance to the World Bank's headquarters in Washington, a
>large sign reads: `Our dream is a world without poverty.' The Commission
>shares that objective as a longterm goal. Unfortunately, neither the World
>Bank nor the regional development banks are pursuing the set of activities
>that could best help the world move rapidly toward that objective or even
>the lesser, but more fully achievable, goal of raising living standards and
>the quality of life, particularly for people in the poorest nations of the
>world," the report states.
> While organizers like Prokosch are working hard to get as many
>people as possible to Washington, they doubt the protests will be as large
>as those that rocked Seattle.
> "The difference is that the WTO clearly was holding a gun to the
>head of a number of different interests environmentalists, people who care
>about health and education," Prokosch explains. "Even though the IMF and
>the World Bank probably hurt labour more than the WTO because they foster a
>global race to the bottom for workers everywhere, there was more of an
>acute crisis surrounding the Seattle meetings."
> On the other hand, Washington is closer than Seattle for millions
>of Americans, and dozens of activist groups are based in the city, making
>mass mobilization easier.
> Even if the April 16-17 protests are smaller than those in
>Seattle, the Washington actions will be seen and heard around the world,
>yet another sign of the growing international resistance to capitalist
>globalization.
> (This report was prepared with files from the Independent Media
>Institute, including an AlterNet report by Roni Krouzman.)
>
>________________
>
>8/ NEW CONFRONTATIONS BUILDING IN ECUADOR
>
>By William Sloan,
>Montreal
>
>THE POPULAR UPRISING last January in Ecuador has aroused wide interest in
>the situation in that country. The American Association of Jurists, an NGO
>with consultative status at the United Nations, decided to send an
>observers mission to Quito. The Feb. 20-23 mission was led by the AAJ's
>continental President, Alvaro Ramirez, a former Nicaraguan Supreme Court
>Justice, and included Waldo Albarracin, the foremost human rights lawyer in
>Bolivia, Romeo Saganash, Director of Quebec relations for the Grand Council
>of the Crees, and myself from the Canadian branch of the AAJ.
> We met with the President of the Congress, Ministers of Government
>affairs and Defense, the Constitutional and Military Courts, the Judicial
>Council, and a minister in the former government. We also met native
>leaders, trade union leaders, human rights organisations, detained officers
>and the Ecuadorian branch of the AAJ, which hosted the visit.
> What we found was a powder keg waiting to explode. On the one
>hand, 20 years of IMF "restructuring" has been exacerbated by the looting
>of the country's riches (including personal savings accounts), by bankers
>and speculators, with the help of successive governments. This led to a
>near insurrectional situation involving indigenous peoples' organisations,
>trade union and popular organisations, and certain progressive and
>nationalist sectors of the armed forces.
> On the other hand, the United States has expanded its active
>interest in Ecuador, deciding to use its Air Base at Manta (acquired last
>November) to co-ordinate operations for Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and
>Venezuela. Its influence on internal events was obvious in January, as the
>Ecuadorian Army High Command followed direct orders from the US State
>Department when they installed Gustavo Noboa as the new President on Jan. 22.
> It quickly became evident that Noboa was nothing but old wine in a
>new bottle. He announced that he was proceeding with the former
>government's plan to "dollarize" the economy, abolishing the national
>currency, the sucre. Perhaps this is a pilot project for the American
>version of the Euro.
> CONAIE and the other indigenous organisations have returned to the
>countryside to strengthen and broaden their support, and are apparently
>linking up with the broad coalition of progressive forces known as the
>Patriotic Front. They are planning to ask for a referendum on the
>replacement of the present corrupt political structures with a People's
>Parliament, elected on the basis of local, regional and provincial assemblies.
> In the coming months there will be further confrontations, as the
>government tries to impose "world" prices on a country where the base wage
>is $54 (US) per month, and where corruption, drug trafficking and money
>laundering will only be made easier by dollarisation.
> CONAIE leaders have suggested that if there is not a redirection
>of the political will of the governing elite, Ecuador is headed for a civil
>war. These are strong words in a country which has just signed a 10-year
>lease with the US for an Air Base. It may be that Che Guevara's call to
>arms is about to be answered in another Latin American country.
>
>________________
>
>9/ FEDERAL LIBERALS OPENED DOOR FOR KLEIN'S BILL 11
>
>By Doug Meggison,
> Edmonton
>
>
>SEVERAL RECENT STUDIES knock the stuffing out of the Alberta Government's
>justifications for Bill 11, which proposes to allow Regional Health
>Authorities to contract out any hospital procedures, including surgeries
>which require overnight stays.
> The New Democratic Party characterizes the Bill as a plan to
>shovel public money into private pockets, and to ultimately destroy
>Medicare. The provincial Liberal Party, despite the milquetoast federal
>Liberal Minister of Health, Alan Rock, has been forced to take a principled
>stand by the huge public support for the New Democrat position (albeit not
>the NDP). The Communist Party plans to coordinate a door to door mail drop
>of an antiprivatization leaflet in the Edmonton riding of the associate
>minister of Health who is leading Premier Klein's "Truth Squad" for the Bill.
> A new study by the University of Alberta's Medicare Economics
>Group (MEG) argues that the bill is a culmination of changes to Medicare
>that the Klein government negotiated with the federal Liberals several
>years ago. This is, by implication, one reason why Ottawa has been fighting
>Bill 11 with one (or both) hands tied behind its back.
> The study's author, Dr. Richard Plain, shows that the furore over
>Bill 11 can be traced back to 199495, when the "provincial government
>reached an understanding with the Alberta Medical Association and various
>medical entrepreneurs which led to the development of a new private public
>hybrid model for the Alberta health care system." (p. iii)
> On May 17, 1996, the Alberta and Federal Governments signed off on
>twelve principles. One of these, Principle 11, sets out that physicians may
>receive both public (Medicare) and private (out of pocket) payments for
>medically required publicly insured services. The example of cataract
>surgery with "addons" is used.
> Dr. Plain argues that Principle 11 should be deleted in its
>entirety, and a number of the other principles amended. Without Principle
>11 in the background, the current Bill 11 could not likely go forward.
> Principle 11 also asserts that where the public system is not
>providing a service in a timely fashion, but still within a medically
>acceptable time frame, an individual may purchase the service outside of
>Medicare insurance.
> The study effectively uses the example of existing private
>forprofit MRI facilities in Alberta as an example of how queue jumping
>occurs today. Bill 11 purports to prohibit queue jumping, but the text of
>the Bill means that "bakeesh" (or bribery) is to be prohibited, not private
>purchase of a diagnostic service which is normally provided within Medicare.
> Dr. Plain shows that the word "timeliness" confuses matters and
>has probably led to a legal violation of the Canada Health Act, despite
>whatever Bill 11 may produce: "The normal linkage between medically
>required services and publicly insured services should remain invariant
>with respect to time or else Medicare, as we currently understand it will
>be destroyed." (p.57)
> A health care economist, Dr. Plain repeatedly shows that the
>private competitive market fails when dealing with "patients," and will
>lead to monopoly price gouging in the absence of strong regulatory
>controls, which the Alberta Tories apparently have no intention to provide.
>Still, he recommends that if contracting out must occur, then all contracts
>must be available for public inspection. Proposing forprofit clinics should
>have to prove their case economically in advance.
> He argues that criteria used by Regional Health Authorities should
>be on a detailed standardized provincial basis; otherwise seventeen systems
>could come into existence. "Report cards" should be issued on private
>clinic performances, and all of the services contracted out (e.g. laundry
>and day surgeries), he says, should be brought under the same new
>legislation and regulations.
> In any event, private hospitals under whatever name ("approved
>surgical facility") should be banned, he says, because of inevitable and
>structural market failure, and the consequential violation of the
>"comprehensive" and "accessible" principles of the Canada Health Act.
> The study shows that the Alberta government is committed to the
>privatization of sectors of Medicare for nonprovable ideological reasons.
>The government has carried out no research to prove the case that
>privatization works by reducing waiting lines or costs. Dr. Plain argues
>that nothing should go forward without appropriate research. The thrust of
>his paper is that the logical, ethical and empirical case cannot be made
>for contracting out overnightstay surgeries.
> Meanwhile, public opposition grows, much of it coordinated by the
>"Friends of Medicare" group, whose tireless spokesperson Christine Burdett
>has been seen on national media. The group has an excellent website with
>links to other organizations and studies at <www.savemedicare.org>.
> Klein is likely to bring back Bill 11 for second reading in early
>April. Meanwhile, his government is assessing the effect of having
>distributed a full text of the Bill to over a million Alberta households.
> However, with the line-up of opponents growing to include the
>Alberta Medical Association, Klein may face a large loss of seats come
>general election time if he bulldogs ahead.
> The ruling class may be ferocious, but they can make mistakes.
>Savaging Medicare may be possible for the Klein regime, but a well
>organized resistance to stop the Tories is gaining strength daily.
> (The Privatization and the Commercialization of Public Hospital
>Based Medical Services Within the Province of Alberta: AN ECONOMIC OVERVIEW
>from a public interest perspective, March 2000, Medicare Economics Group,
>Department of Economics, University of Alberta, 65 pp., download from
>Internet free at www.meg.ab.ca)
>
>
>
>
>***************************************
>Communist Party of Canada
>290A Danforth Ave.,
>Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
>416-469-2446 (voice)
>416-469-4063 (fax)
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>http://www.communist-party.ca
>
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