IMF's diktats
A recent article by Bill Quigley ( a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans) titled “ The US role in Haiti's food riots”, published in one of our English dailies, was one glaring example of how multilateral organisations such as IMF, under the auspices of the US, damaged Haiti's agricultural market. According to the author, in 1986 (after the removal of “Baby Doc” Duvalier), the IMF gave loan of $24.6m loan to Haiti. But as always they set certain preconditions i.e. Haiti was asked to remove tariff barriers from their rice and other agricultural products so that cheap and “subsidized” US rice could enter into their domestic market. And as a result, the Haitian farmers found it very difficult to compete against cheap US rice. Thus domestic farmers were adversely affected and lost the incentive to cultivate any further. There were other repercussions in the form of “rice wars”, and to make matters worse lives were lost.
Even in 1994, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in order to come back to power, was ordered by the IMF, WB and the US to further liberalize Haiti's market. Hence the ultimate impact was high unemployment conditions as people from countryside unable to cope with cheap rice from USmigrated to the urban cities. According to the article, US subsidies for rice totalled $11bn from 1995 to 2006. One producer alone, Riceland Foods Inc of Stuttgart Arkansas, received over $500 million dollars in rice subsidies between 1995 and 2006.
Now we are witnessing food riots in Haiti. We see hungry people of Haiti waiting for food in long lines in Port au Prince to get UN donated rice. So, you can see yourself how devastating the policies of the agencies of the West such as the IMF are for the developing countries. IMF policies such as structural adjustment programmes have done more harm than good for the developing countries. We now see the IMF telling us to raise the price of fuel, gas. One wonders why we should be following their diktats anymore. We have sufficient reserves in our Central Bank and from now on we must not take any string-attached loans from the IMF, let alone listen to their “destructive” policies. For that to happen, the Finance Adviser, the Central Bank Governor and the upper tiers of the government have to take the initiative.`
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments