Poor track record for World Bank

In Maxime Vanier's letter last week, it was suggested that anti-World Bank activists should visit the World Bank's Web site to see that their main objective "is to alleviate world poverty altogether." The World Bank's president has also stated that they "perhaps have done a poor job of communicating what [they] do."

Why not look at their track record? The World Bank and International Monetary Funds' Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which contain conditions required in order for a country to get a loan, insist on making governments decrease their role in their economy and privatize everything while eliminating subsidies, in favour of the "free market."

Around the world, this has resulted in sell-offs of government-owned companies and massive layoffs. For example, in Mozambique the IMF and World Bank ordered the removal of an export tax on cashews which resulted in 10,000 adults, mostly women, losing their jobs to child labourers in India.

SAPs also result in less social services and less education spending. The IMF and World Bank force countries like India to focus on cash crops and the extraction of raw materials in order to turn the raw goods over to transnational corporations instead of focusing on subsistence farming.

SAPs have also caused the elimination of environmental and labour standards (at the urging of U.S. and European investors) and farmers' land to be taken over by foreign companies, leading to much greater levels of poverty. The number of Russians who live in poverty has risen from two million to 60 million since the IMF came to post-Communist Russia. The average person's income fell by about half within four years of the implementation of IMF programs there. At the same time, trans-nationals were extracting massive amounts of wealth from Russia.

The IMF and World Bank have also demanded the implementation of user fees. In Mexico, this meant introducing tuition for university, so the little opportunity which existed to enable individuals to get out of poverty through education is eliminated.

When the World Bank and IMF require countries to privatize health care, it renders many essential services unavailable to the poor, mostly women and children. Furthermore, loans almost exclusively go to large-scale agri-businesses run predominantly by men, rather than the small-scale agricultural production with which women feed their families.

The World Bank and IMF's primary role has become to bail out trans-national banking institutions and channel funds earmarked for the alleviation of poverty to wealthy individuals and nations through crippling debt repayments.

As Ralph Nader recently stated, the 300 richest individuals in the world have more wealth than the 3 billion poorest. It has become very clear, after their decades of existence, for whom the World Bank and IMF work. It does not take a PhD in economics to figure that out.

-- Phil Ilijevski, Canadian, Federation of Students

Sympathy for Samuel

John Edmonds, in his report on Julian Samuel ["Passage to Welfare," April 13], shows his bias. He describes Samuel as a troublemaker, using a few quotes against him. But if Julian Samuel was a victim of racism and felt so, he had every right to be angry. Why do you not understand his position?

A staff member at John Abbott College said she felt threatened about her own safety because of his abusive behaviour. Since when did being angry about racism and demanding justice constitute abusive behaviour? As a Chinese Canadian, I have suffered enough racism myself and I sympathize with Julian Samuel.

John Edmonds comes across as an unsympathetic right-winger in a leftist newspaper.

--Colin Tang

Spring Fitness corrections

The price of a boomerang lesson from Club de Boomerang Montréal is actually $15/hour, including a free boomerang, not $25. The telephone number for Kendo Isshin (6415 des écorces), although taken from their Web site, is incorrect.

The Quebec Kendo Federation is located at 903 St-Zotique E., 276-8614. Also, the archery courses that were mentioned are only for children. To find out more about adult courses, call 259-9282 after 6 p.m.