I Know the ONE DAY Shelf Life Has Expired but About The IMF GRAND PIRACY Waged on Somalia

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Like virtually every modern African state Somalia's history is the history of imperialism itself.

The World Bank/IMF Structural Adjustment Programs and the Somali Crisis

by Julius O. Ihonvbere

Paper prepared for the symposium on "Towards Conflict Resolution in the Horn of Africa," organized by the African Studies Program, Central Connecticut State university, New Britain, Connecticut, November 19, 1994.

The clan system that is embedded in Somali culture is not in itself responsible for the destruction of Somalia: the deliberate policy of exacerbating clan rivalries is. Said Bare initiated the policy, but the war lords bent on replacing him replicated his tactics.

There are more arms than food in Somalia. These arms were not fabricated by Somalis... they were given by the outside, to serve outside interests. Those who provide arms are partners in crime.

<snip>

Unfortunately, analyses of the origins, dimensions, and implications of the Somali crisis have tended to be superficial and impressionistic. Part of this problem is because the world, even the academic community, had to rely on the media with its journalistic interpretations and penchant for sensationalism. Somalia had not benefited from the massive influx of expatriate western researchers in the 1970s as was Tanzania, Kenya, Cote d'Ivoire, and Nigeria. Thus, not much is known about the nation's political economy in the West. It was thus easy and rather convenient to blame the crisis and the disintegration of the Somali state on the so-called warlords and ethnic or tribal clans. The wrong argument was that the clashes among the clans and the inability of the warlords to reach a consensus is responsible for the Somali crisis. This, we argue, is only a very partial and superficial explanation of the crisis.

Our goal in this paper is not to argue that the IMF and World Bank created the Somali crisis. Rather, we contend that the crisis is directly a precipitate of ruthless exploitation, underdevelopment and marginalization of the Somali social formation by the forces of Western imperialism. We contend that this crisis was reproduced through the interplay of political forces, the alignment and realignment of political and ideological interests in post-colonial Somalia. It is into this crisis, precipitated by internal and external forces, that the IMF and the World Bank waded in the 1980s only to deepen contradictions, destroy the foundations of stability, erode the legitimacy of the state, intensify poverty and alienation, and lay the foundation for the more popularly known version of the Somali experience as was seen very recently.

<snip>

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/33/006.html

CONCLUSION

The data reviewed in this study suggest that the International Monetary Fund has failed in Africa, in terms of its own stated objectives and according to its own data. Increasing debt burdens, poor growth performance, and the failure of the majority of the population to improve their access to education, health care, or other basic needs has been the general pattern in countries subject to IMF programs.

The core elements of IMF structural adjustment programs have remained remarkably consistent since the early 1980s. Although there has been mounting criticism and calls for reform over the last year and a half-- as a result of the Fund's intervention in the Asian and Russian financial crises-- no reforms of the IMF or its policies have been forthcoming. And there are as yet no indications from the Fund itself that it sees any need for reform. In fact, IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus has repeatedly referred to the Asian economic collapse as "a blessing in disguise."(63)

In the absence of any reform at the IMF for the foreseeable future, the need for debt cancellation for Africa is all the more urgent. This enormous debt burden consumed 4.3% of sub-Saharan Africa's GNP in 1997. If these resources had been devoted to investment, the region could have increased its economic growth by nearly a full percentage point--sadly this is more than twice its per capita growth for that year. But the debt burden exacts another price, which may be even higher than the drain of resources out of the country: it provides the means by which the IMF is able to impose the conditions of its structural adjustment programs on these desperately poor countries.

Any debt relief that is tied to structural adjustment, or other conditionality imposed by the IMF--as it is in the HIPC initiative--could very well cause more economic harm than good to the recipients. Debt relief should be granted outside the reach of this institution, preferably without conditions. Moreover, the role of the Fund in Africa and developing countries generally, and especially its control over major economic decisions, should be drastically reduced. Any efforts to provide additional funding or authority to the IMF, before the institution has been fundamentally reformed, would be counter-productive.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/a-survey-of-the-impacts-of-imf-structural-adjustment-in-africa/

[DCKit]

1. The IMF and World Bank but USAID is nowhere in sight?

And those three are just the most obvious human rights abusers.

I have a list somewhere.... Wrote it while drunk with a friend who works in international aid. When I read the list while sober, I simply couldn't believe the sheer number of predatory and parasitic NGOs out there.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

2. USAID in Somalia

Lots of pretty words here:
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/somalia/

[malaise]

3. The IMF World Bank etc

have done that everywhere.
When Ponzi scheme managers are the biggest donors to the governing party (right here in Jamaica) we know we're in trouble.
Just google David Smith and Olint.

The Washington Consensus has fucked this planet.

[scarletwoman]

4. k&r -- this needs more visibility.

Thanks as always, Ghost, for bringing this information to light.

sw

[leftofthedial]

5. Most people are way too concerned about the moneyed elite

draining the US to really care what they're doing in Somalia.

[blindpig]

6. k&r n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Strangely, neither article actually tells us what the World Bank or IMF did in Somalia

although both has been involved there. :shrug:

The nearest we get is:

"Yet, Somaliland must learn from the mistakes of Somalia as far as the World Bank is concerned. It cannot afford to impose painful orthodox adjustment programs on a poor, hungry, insecure, and already frustrated populace."

which is a bit non-specific. We've no idea when these programs were, how big they were, the adjustments, etc. We can guess from what they were in other countries, but then, other countries haven't had the history Somalia has had, so it'd be a pretty uninformed guess.

[TBF]

8. K&R n/t

[leveymg]

9. I disagree. The primary cause of ethnic violence was the brutalization of the Cold War occupations

of Somalia and Ethiopia, who were pawns in the most vicious of U.S.-Soviet conflicts. The Somalis and Ethiopians were kept absolutely dependent on their patrons, as they had been under the colonial yokes of Italy and Britain. Throughout history, these areas had been often plundered by outside pillagers and would-be occupiers. The Horn is so isolated, and lacking strategic export commodities, nobody in the outside world much cared what happened here. The local dictators - Somalia's Said Barre regime and the Hailemariam Mengistu regime in Addis - committed THE WORLD'S WORST human rights atrocities. The combination of stark poverty and totalitarianism went on for decades. After the Cold War ended, the thumb of the centralized states was not easily thrown off -- the revolutions in both countries were bloody to the extreme.

Both counties disintegrated into ethnic enclaves where life was at a below substance level. The strong killed the weak, raped their women and ate their goats. By the time the IMF/WB got involved -- and made things worse -- the place was already a nightmare. More recently, inter-ethnic clashes and piracy have been sponsored by competing religious extremists and kleptocapitalist interests, such as Mafiyya toxic waste dumpers and the usual global oil companies, who are eyeing the modest reserves detected in the Gulf of Aden along the coast of northern Somaliland, a strategically-located breakway regions seeking int'l recognition. The spike in piracy may drive down interest by potential competing bidders, and the cost of concessions currently being auctioned by Somaliland.