An international appeal against the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions has already gathered endorsers from more than 50 countries on all continents. Organisers hope to present these signatures, and thousands more, to the G7 summit in Lyons in June. The text of the appeal is reprinted here. To add your signature, send a statement "I support the international appeal: 'World Bank/IMF/WTO: Enough!'" together with your name, address, telephone (and fax or email), occupation and signature to CADTM, 29 rue Plantin, 1070 Brussels, Belgium (or fax to 32 2 522 6127). Statements may also be sent to Green Left Weekly, and we will forward them to the appeal organisers.
There is little to rejoice as the international community commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Bretton Woods agreement which led to the founding of the International Monetary FUND (IMF), the World Bank and the GATT. The "structural adjustment program" imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions to obtain the reimbursement of the debt has led to famine and the brutal impoverishment of the developing world while contributing to the "thirdworldisation" of the countries of the former Eastern bloc.
While the World Bank's mandate consists among others in "combating poverty" and protecting the environment, its actions have contributed to the dismantling of health and education programs. Its support to large-scale hydro-electric and agro-industrial projects has speeded up the process of deforestation and destruction of the natural environment, leading to the forced displacement and eviction of several million people. In the South and the East hundreds of millions of undernourished children are denied the fundamental right to primary education. In several regions of the world, the brutal compression of social expenditures, combined with the collapse of purchasing power, has led to a resurgence of infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria and cholera.
The GATT agreement further violates fundamental peoples' rights, particularly in the areas of foreign investment, biodiversity and intellectual property rights. Several clauses of the "structural adjustment programs" are now permanently entrenched in the articles of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO's mandate consists in regulating World trade to the benefit of the international banks and transnational corporations as well as "supervising" (in close collaboration with the IMF and the World Bank) the enforcement of national trade policies.
In the developed countries of the North, similar socially oppressive economic policies are now being applied. The consequences are unemployment, low wages, the marginalisation of large sectors of the population and racism. Social expenditures are curtailed and many of the achievements of the welfare state repealed. State policies have also encouraged the destruction of small and medium sized enterprises.
In the South, the East and the North, a privileged social minority has accumulated vast amounts of wealth at the expense of the large majority of the population. This new international financial order feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the natural environment and generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife, undermines the rights of women and often precipitates countries into destructive confrontations between nationalities.
The time has come for humanity to forcefully respond and establish an agenda for social change. We the undersigned, citizens, workers, teachers, writers, artists, civil servants, trade-unionists, members of non-governmental organisations throughout the world reassert the fundamental right of people to national economic sovereignty, democratic development and social justice. We denounce this destructive "economic model" while reasserting our firm opposition to the interference of the Bretton Woods institutions and the new World Trade Organisation in the internal affairs of sovereign states.