Dari milis pantau:
Rio
================================
Anggota DPR Dr. Dradjad Wibowo "diusir" keluar dari
pertemuan tingkat menteri negara-negara G24 tgl 23
Sept kemarin. Dradjad hadir dalam pertemuan itu
sebagai salah satu wakil parlemen dunia yang
menandatangani petisi internasional yang menyerukan
adanya pengawasan demokrasi pada kebijakan World Bank
dan IMF (lihat http://www.ippinfo.org).
-nh-
---------------------------- Original Message --
Subject: IMF in Astonishing Attack on Democracy
From: "James Riker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, September 27, 2005 3:14 am
To: "James Riker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
----------------------------------------------------
IMF in Astonishing Attack on Democracy
Parliamentarians Removed from G24
Ministers Meeting
In an extraordinary demonstration of how the IMF
habitually bullies poor countries, and of its
opposition to democratic scrutiny of its own
activities, senior IMF staff threw two Members of
Parliament (MPs) out of the meeting of the Group of 24
Developing Country Ministers on the 23 September 2005.
Dr. Dradjad Wibowo MP from Indonesia and Hon. Mohammed
Jagri MP from Ghana had been invited to attend the
meeting by the G24 Secretariat to present a petition
calling for democratic oversight of World Bank and IMF
policies, and to question World Bank President Paul
Wolfowitz and IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato. The
International Parliamentarians Petition (IPP) has been
signed by over 1100 MPs from 55 parliaments.
The MPs, who were sitting next to the Saudi Foreign
Minister at the time, were removed on the orders of
the IMF's parliamentary liaison officer Patrick
Cricillo, and Mr. Parmeshwa Ramlogan, an advisor to
Mr. Rato. The IMF tried to justify their actions on
the grounds that they believed the MPs did not have
permission to attend the meetings, but they did not
even check with the G24 Chair, Mr. Paul Toungui first.
When his staff informed him about what had happened,
Mr. Toungui rightly ensured the MPs were allowed back
in, but it was too late for them to deliver their
petition or raise the issue with Rato and Wolfowitz.
It has also since emerged that the IMF had been
putting pressure on the G24 not to allow the MPs in to
start with.
The IMF's media line is that they thought the MPs were
civil society people with no right to be at the
meeting. This is a bare-faced lie. Mr. Cricillo and
Mr. Ramlogan were repeatedly informed of the status of
the MPs before, during and after their removal by both
the MPs and those there as aides. Furthermore, Mr.
Wibowo had an official Delegates badge, and Mr.
Jagri a Visitors pass both clearly displayed.
Before they were removed Martin Powell, of the World
Development Movement said to Mr. Ramlogan, "Do you
really think two MPs would travel half way round the
world on the off chance they could walk into a G24
Ministers meeting? Of course they have permission to
be there. Have you checked with the Chair?"
Hon. Mohammed Jagri MP (Ghana) said, "It should beggar
belief for the IMF to throw MPs out of a poor country
ministers meeting to stop them presenting a petition
calling for democratic accountability of the IMF
itself. In fact this is just one more demonstration of
how the IMF actively undermines democracy in poor
countries, by riding roughshod over governments,
parliaments and the people they represent. How can the
IMF preach transparency and accountability to poor
countries when they behave like this?"
Would the IMF have removed a US Senator and the Chair
of the UK Treasury Select Committee in this way? No.
This is therefore clear discrimination too. In any
case, who are the IMF to dictate to the G24 who
they can and can't have at their meetings?
Despite promising to let poor countries determine
their own paths to development, the World Bank and IMF
continue to impose economic conditions like
privatisation and trade liberalisation in exchange for
debt relief, loans, and aid. In so doing they often
over-ride national parliaments, undermine democracy
and increase poverty. The Petition was originally
presented to Bank and Fund staff at the Spring
meetings when MPs were told they should take their
concerns to shareholders. Clearly the
IMF had no intention of letting that actually happen.
This action shows once again that all the IMF's talk
of country ownership and participation in
decision-making processes is nothing more than empty
rhetoric. For senior IMF staff to treat elected
representatives of citizens of poor countries with
such contempt exposes an astonishing disrespect for
the sovereignty of national parliaments. To now
pretend they didn't know they were MPs is an insult to
our
intelligence.
Please circulate this widely.
Martin Powell,
World Development Movement.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] www.wdm.org.uk
Notes
1. The Petition is supported by a range of
parliamentary and civil society groups including the
Parliamentary Network on the World Bank (PNoWB), UK
All Party Parliamentary Group on Debt, Aid and Trade,
Action Aid, Christian Aid, Afrodad, Development Gap,
Third World Network. See
www.ippinfo.org <http://www.ippinfo.org/> for more
information on the
petition and signatories.
2. International Parliamentarians' Petition for
Democratic Oversight of IMF and World Bank Policies
We the undersigned Parliamentarians;
Noting this is the 60th anniversary year of the
creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
World Bank - the Bretton Woods
Institutions (BWIs).
Recognising that the IMF and World Bank have voiced a
commitment to ensuring individual countries determine
their own economic policies.
Noting that key economic policies continue to be
imposed by both the World Bank and IMF as conditions
for receiving debt relief and new loans, with
the Boards of the BWIs retaining the power of veto
over all measures including those in Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers.
We therefore call on the BWIs and their principal
shareholders to ensure that the democratically elected
representatives of recipient nations are the final
arbiters of all economic policies in their countries.
It is vital that national parliaments in recipient
nations have the right and obligation to be fully
involved in the development and scrutiny of all
measures associated with BWI activities within their
borders, and hold the final power of ratification.
Ensuring the primacy of sovereign national parliaments
in this way will improve implementation of measures to
reduce poverty, enhance good
governance, and foster democracy.
******************************************************
Jim Riker, Ph.D.
Associate Director
The Democracy Collaborative
University of Maryland
1230 Tawes Hall
College Park, MD 20742-7255 USA
Phone: 301-405-9967
Fax: 301-314-2533
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.DemocracyCollaborative.org
"Engaged Scholarship and Informed Practice for a
Democratic World"
*******************************************************
" A great democracy has got to be progressive or it
will cease to be great or a democracy"
-- Theodore Roosevelt
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