4 February 1999 Edition
Dublin government backs world debt-collectors
The Dublin government is this year for the first time to contribute to the International Monetary Fund's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF). The IMF and the World Bank are responsible for collecting the debt of impoverished states throughout the world who carry a huge burden, which is a direct cause of poverty and death.
ESAF is supposedly aimed at helping countries to pay off their debts but it imposes severe financial contraints on these states, leading to cutbacks in essential services. Irish aid agencies and others working in the Third World have strongly opposed Irish support for ESAF. The Debt and Development Coalition is leading the campaign of opposition and is calling for the cancellation of the debt.
Legislation to allow the Irish government to support ESAF and the IMF was debated in Leinster House this week. Some government deputies, including Dick Roche (Fianna Fáil, Wicklow) harshly criticised ESAF yet went on to support the Bretton Woods Agreement (Amendment) Bill. Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin spoke against the Bill. We carry here the text of his speech.
I wish to speak briefly in opposition to this Bill as I regard it as taking this State in a new and negative direction in our handling of the issue of debt, development and aid to the majority of impoverished countries in the world.
I listened with interest to the contributions of deputies, including Deputy Roche, who offered us sound reasons for rejecting this Bill, and yet states he is still going to vote for it. As Deputy Roche prescribes, the minnows should indeed give a little leadership. Progressive Irish opinion and tragic international need demands it. The minnows should vote against this Bill. I for one will both speak against it and vote against it.
This Bill takes us a further step away from independence in foreign policy. It should be rejected because it provides for contributions from this State to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility of the International Monetary Fund. There is very little knowledge and even less debate in this country about the role of the IMF and ESAF.
I commend the Debt and Development Coalition for highlighting the reality of the debt crisis and the role of the World Bank, the IMF and ESAF in compounding that crisis and thereby causing untold misery to millions throughout the world. The Coalition is comprised of organisations and individuals who have worked for justice and development throughout the world. They are better placed than anyone else in this country to assess the real human impact on the ground of policies devised in boardrooms and parliaments far away from the impoverished communities who bear the brunt of the debt crisis.
As the Debt and Development Coalition has pointed out the aim of the IMF and ESAF is not to reduce poverty but to reduce budget deficits. Human needs and the social impact of IMF policies are secondary considerations, where they are considered at all.
Conditions laid down by the IMF for borrowing countries are so onerous that over three quarters of programmes break down. ESAF works to a monetarist agenda dealing with Ministers for Finance and Governers of Central Banks in indebted countries. There is no democratic accountability. In spite of the aspirations in Minister McCreevy's speech ESAF remains unreformed yet he wishes to associate us with this programme which is compounding the problems of indebted countries.
Instead of tying us to ESAF this government should be taking a political initiative and joining those countries who are calling for the cancellation of all outstanding debts owed by developing countries.
This call was made by the President of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams when he visited Mexico last year. He noted then that the debt issue only became a crisis for the wealthier Northern hemisphere governments when Mexico declared it could no longer meet its repayments in 1982. The fact that for many years a blanket of poverty had descended on Latin America because of debt concerned Northern hemisphere bankers less than the prospect of a global financial crisis caused by developing countries defaulting on their loan to the IMF and the World Bank.
At present the majority of developing countries are locked in a vicious cycle of debt which denies them the opportunity to improve the quality of life of those in greatest need in our world. The voice of Ireland should be on their side, joining with them in the demand for cancellation of the debt and a hopeful beginning of the new millenium. In appealing to the Minister for Finance to reconsider this ill-conceived piece of legislation I urge him to heed the words of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund:
``Hundreds of thousands of the developing world's children have given their lives to pay their countries' debts, and many millions more are still paying the interest with their malnourished minds and bodies.''
By Stephen Mahony
Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas, who now lives in self imposed exile in Dublin, was jailed for 50 years on 21 January in Mexico City for ordering the assassination in 1994 of prominent politician Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. The trial, which lasted four years, was seen by many as the most important test of the Mexican judiciary in modern times. The verdict breaks the long standing taboo in Mexican society of not convicting relatives of powerful politicians.
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was a leading politician in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled the country since 1929 under various names, and was allegedly seen by Raul Salinas as a threat to his family's political power.
There was also, said the prosecution, bad blood between the two stemming from Ruiz Massieu's divorce from Salinas' sister. At the time of the assassination Raul Salinas was a mid-level bureacrat in CONASUPO, which is th egovernment agency responsible for subsidising food for Mexico's poor, yet he managed to accumulate a multi million dollar fortune. Raul Salinas has come to symbolise the corruption in Mexican society which along with unsound economic policy decisions eventually led to the 1994 devaluation of the Peso, an economic decision the country is yet to recover from.
Salinas's defence team has lodged an appeal against the decision. Raul consistently claims he is being framed in an elaborate vendetta against himself and his brother.
No jury was used in the trial, nor were any witnesses questioned in open court, which is standard practice in the Mexican legal system. Instead, the trial was conducted by building a written record of testimonies and documentary evidence which reached 140,000 pages by the end and it was on these pages that federal district judge Ricardo Ojeda Bohorquez, based his decision. Salinas's lawyers claim the evidence is a mixture of hearsay and lies and have accused the attorney general's office of paying witnesses, which the former attorney general had done. In defence of his decision judge Ojeda stated that although there was no ``confession or direct proof'' the evidence against Salinas ``wove together in a direct way''. Salinas still faces charges of illegal enrichment, alleged bribes, aiding drug smugglers and misusing public funds and this chapter in Mexico's history is likely to continue into the next century.
ESAF is supposedly aimed at helping countries to pay off their debts but it imposes severe financial contraints on these states, leading to cutbacks in essential services. Irish aid agencies and others working in the Third World have strongly opposed Irish support for ESAF. The Debt and Development Coalition is leading the campaign of opposition and is calling for the cancellation of the debt.
Legislation to allow the Irish government to support ESAF and the IMF was debated in Leinster House this week. Some government deputies, including Dick Roche (Fianna Fáil, Wicklow) harshly criticised ESAF yet went on to support the Bretton Woods Agreement (Amendment) Bill. Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin spoke against the Bill. We carry here the text of his speech.
I wish to speak briefly in opposition to this Bill as I regard it as taking this State in a new and negative direction in our handling of the issue of debt, development and aid to the majority of impoverished countries in the world.
I listened with interest to the contributions of deputies, including Deputy Roche, who offered us sound reasons for rejecting this Bill, and yet states he is still going to vote for it. As Deputy Roche prescribes, the minnows should indeed give a little leadership. Progressive Irish opinion and tragic international need demands it. The minnows should vote against this Bill. I for one will both speak against it and vote against it.
This Bill takes us a further step away from independence in foreign policy. It should be rejected because it provides for contributions from this State to the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility of the International Monetary Fund. There is very little knowledge and even less debate in this country about the role of the IMF and ESAF.
I commend the Debt and Development Coalition for highlighting the reality of the debt crisis and the role of the World Bank, the IMF and ESAF in compounding that crisis and thereby causing untold misery to millions throughout the world. The Coalition is comprised of organisations and individuals who have worked for justice and development throughout the world. They are better placed than anyone else in this country to assess the real human impact on the ground of policies devised in boardrooms and parliaments far away from the impoverished communities who bear the brunt of the debt crisis.
As the Debt and Development Coalition has pointed out the aim of the IMF and ESAF is not to reduce poverty but to reduce budget deficits. Human needs and the social impact of IMF policies are secondary considerations, where they are considered at all.
Conditions laid down by the IMF for borrowing countries are so onerous that over three quarters of programmes break down. ESAF works to a monetarist agenda dealing with Ministers for Finance and Governers of Central Banks in indebted countries. There is no democratic accountability. In spite of the aspirations in Minister McCreevy's speech ESAF remains unreformed yet he wishes to associate us with this programme which is compounding the problems of indebted countries.
Instead of tying us to ESAF this government should be taking a political initiative and joining those countries who are calling for the cancellation of all outstanding debts owed by developing countries.
This call was made by the President of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams when he visited Mexico last year. He noted then that the debt issue only became a crisis for the wealthier Northern hemisphere governments when Mexico declared it could no longer meet its repayments in 1982. The fact that for many years a blanket of poverty had descended on Latin America because of debt concerned Northern hemisphere bankers less than the prospect of a global financial crisis caused by developing countries defaulting on their loan to the IMF and the World Bank.
At present the majority of developing countries are locked in a vicious cycle of debt which denies them the opportunity to improve the quality of life of those in greatest need in our world. The voice of Ireland should be on their side, joining with them in the demand for cancellation of the debt and a hopeful beginning of the new millenium. In appealing to the Minister for Finance to reconsider this ill-conceived piece of legislation I urge him to heed the words of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund:
``Hundreds of thousands of the developing world's children have given their lives to pay their countries' debts, and many millions more are still paying the interest with their malnourished minds and bodies.''
50 year sentence for Salinas
By Stephen Mahony
Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas, who now lives in self imposed exile in Dublin, was jailed for 50 years on 21 January in Mexico City for ordering the assassination in 1994 of prominent politician Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. The trial, which lasted four years, was seen by many as the most important test of the Mexican judiciary in modern times. The verdict breaks the long standing taboo in Mexican society of not convicting relatives of powerful politicians.
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was a leading politician in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled the country since 1929 under various names, and was allegedly seen by Raul Salinas as a threat to his family's political power.
There was also, said the prosecution, bad blood between the two stemming from Ruiz Massieu's divorce from Salinas' sister. At the time of the assassination Raul Salinas was a mid-level bureacrat in CONASUPO, which is th egovernment agency responsible for subsidising food for Mexico's poor, yet he managed to accumulate a multi million dollar fortune. Raul Salinas has come to symbolise the corruption in Mexican society which along with unsound economic policy decisions eventually led to the 1994 devaluation of the Peso, an economic decision the country is yet to recover from.
Salinas's defence team has lodged an appeal against the decision. Raul consistently claims he is being framed in an elaborate vendetta against himself and his brother.
No jury was used in the trial, nor were any witnesses questioned in open court, which is standard practice in the Mexican legal system. Instead, the trial was conducted by building a written record of testimonies and documentary evidence which reached 140,000 pages by the end and it was on these pages that federal district judge Ricardo Ojeda Bohorquez, based his decision. Salinas's lawyers claim the evidence is a mixture of hearsay and lies and have accused the attorney general's office of paying witnesses, which the former attorney general had done. In defence of his decision judge Ojeda stated that although there was no ``confession or direct proof'' the evidence against Salinas ``wove together in a direct way''. Salinas still faces charges of illegal enrichment, alleged bribes, aiding drug smugglers and misusing public funds and this chapter in Mexico's history is likely to continue into the next century.