HURRICANE IMF, World Bank, U.S. AID in the Caribbean by Kathy McAfee
THE HURRICANE THAT VENGEFUL CARIBbean deity whom no one can influence, much less control, and whose destructive power is unmatched is an appropriate metaphor for the role the...
...The second is equally convenient for justifying foreign control, since the "private sector" really amounts to foreign investors...
...At the insistence of multilateral lending agencies and development specialists, they have subsidized foreigners to fell forests, mine mountains, plow under food crops and build lowwage sweatshops-all to help pay off their debts...
...These countries have become debt peons...
...An alternative model, based on food self-sufficiency, regional integration and the use of local resources to meet local needs, is scoffed at by the brokers of development aid, despite successful experiments and positive feasibility studies...
...No poor nation has any say in formulating the policies of the World Bank...
...LmurA...
...With the Caribbean's destiny in the hands of foreign masters, development to benefit the region's people is an uphill struggle waged only by women's groups, small cooperatives and nongovernmental organizations...
...Kathy McAfee argues that "structural adjustment," the catch-phrase for the latest version of the marketdriven private-sector-led development model, is in essence a "recolonization" of the Caribbean by foreign capital...
...But the competitive rush to export their resources has, not incidentally, pushed commodity prices down, and they have only fallen further into debt...
...if we need flour, we must import it...
...In this Report, Kathy McAfee, a researcher specializing in debt, hunger and economic issues, examines the ideology of the authors of this unnatural disaster, and its dogmatic application in three islands of the English-speaking Caribbean: Jamaica, Grenada and Dominica...
...That philosophy is what keeps us in debt and...our governments vacillat[ing] between the practical necessity of developing our own resources, and blind allegiance to the ideology of private enterprise...
...The role of AID and the World Bank is just the opposite: to convince us if we need a factory, we must pay a foreign company to build it...
...Our task is to widen people's view of what is possible, and to expand our nations' visions of themselves," says Atherton Martin, a development activist from Dominica...
...The first is an old story, dusted off and modernized to justify the continued removal of the region's resources...
...Structural adjustment is based on two notions: that poor nations can work their way out of debt by providing even more cheap labor and raw materials to the industrialized nations...
...While the West celebrates its supposed victory over socialism and the broken-down economies it spawned, in the small nations of the Caribbean, free-market capitalism is driving down living standards, undermining food self- sufficiency and forcing thousands to emigrate...
...The second is equally convenient for justifying foreign control, since the "private sector" really amounts to foreign investors...
...Nationalism has been crushed by economic warfare and covert action (Jamaica) and by outright invasion (Grenada), leaving the neocolonial elites who control the region's governments-and whose power depends on the influx of funds from the IMF, World Bank and AID-free to cooperate in transforming the islands into an investors' paradise...
...While the West celebrates its supposed victory over socialism and the broken-down economies it spawned, in the small nations of the Caribbean, free-market capitalism is driving down living standards, undermining food selfsufficiency and forcing thousands to emigrate...
...and that the private sector should determine how a society's resources are used...
...and that the private sector should determine how a society's resources are used...
...aI IMF, World Bank, U.S...
...Yet this financial elite-easily the most powerful group of people in the world-decides the destiny of millions...
...HE DIRECTORS OF THE IMF ARE NOT CHOsen by popular vote...
...Our task is to widen people's view of what is possible, and to expand our nations' visions of themselves," says Atherton Martin, a development activist from Dominica...
...T HE HURRICANE-THAT VENGEFUL CARIB- bean deity whom no one can influence, much less control, and whose destructive power is unmatched-is an appropriate metaphor for the role the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the U.S...
...That philosophy is what keeps us in debt and...
...No poor nation has any say in formulating the policies of the World Bank...
...The role of AID and the World Bank is just the opposite: to convince us if we need a factory, we must pay a foreign company to build it...
...It has the added effect of placing Caribbean nations in competition to undersell each other's exports, thus derailing efforts at regional integration...
...Yet this financial elite easily the most powerful group of people in the world decides the destiny of millions...
...VOLUME XXIII, NO.5 (FEBRUARY 1990) 13...
...Agency for International Development have played in what they regard as their waterfront property...
...These countries have become debt peons...
...if we need flour, we must import it...
...Kathy McAfee argues that 'structural adjustment," the catch-phrase for the latest version of the marketdriven private-sector-led development model, is in essence a "recolonization" of the Caribbean by foreign capital...
...With the Caribbean's destiny in the hands of foreign masters, development to benefit the region's people is an uphill struggle waged only by women's groups, small cooperatives and nongovernmental organi- zations...
...our governments vacillat[ing] between the practical necessity of developing our own resources, and blind allegiance to the ideology of private enterprise...
...In this Report, Kathy McAfee, a researcher specializing in debt, hunger and economic issues, examines the ideology of the authors of this unnatural disaster, and its dogmatic application in three islands of the English-speaking Caribbean: Jamaica, Grenada and Dominica...
...AID in the Caribbean...
...With all their talk of freedom and democracy, their grand strategy for "development" comes down to the exploitation of natural and human resources to benefit the wealthy-implemented with an arrogance that borders on the criminal...
...No one elects the AID brass...
...Nationalism has been crushed by economic warfare and covert action (Jamaica) and by outright invasion (Grenada), leaving the neocolonial elites who control the region's governments and whose power depends on the influx of funds from the IMF, World Bank and AID free to cooperate in transforming the islands into an investors' paradise...
...Structural adjustment is based on two notions: that poor nations can work their way out of debt by providing even more cheap labor and raw materials to the industrialized nations...
...But the competitive rush to export their resources has, not incidentally, pushed commodity prices down, and they have only fallen further into debt...
...The first is an old story, dusted off and modernized to justify the continued removal of the region's resources...
...At the insistence of multilateral lending agencies and development specialists, they have subsidized foreigners to fell forests, mine mountains, plow under food crops and build lowwage sweatshops all to help pay off their debts...
...An alternative model, based on food self-sufficiency, regional integration and the use of local resources to meet local needs, is scoffed at by the brokers of development aid, despite successful experiments and positive feasibil- ity studies...
...With all their talk of freedom and democracy, their grand strategy for "development" comes down to the exploitation of natural and human resources to benefit the wealthy implemented with an arrogance that borders on the criminal...
...THE HURRICANE THAT VENGEFUL CARIBbean deity whom no one can influence, much less control, and whose destructive power is unmatched is an appropriate metaphor for the role the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the U.S...
...T HE DIRECTORS OF THE IMF ARE NOT CHOsen by popular vote...
...No one elects the AID brass...
...Agency for International Development have played in what they regard as their waterfront property...
...It has the added effect of placing Caribbean nations in competition to undersell each other's exports, thus derailing efforts at regional integration...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 5
