"(...) the World Bank, as John Perkins points out, has done more than its share to crush the hopes of the world’s impoverished peoples. The problem with the World Bank is not that sometimes it is run by the "wrong" people, but rather that it exists at all.
"Throughout sub-Saharan Africa," observed Ian Vasquez of the Cato Institute’s Project on Global Economic Liberty more than a decade ago, "the IMF and World Bank have been loaning enormous sums to oppressive socialist and authoritarian regimes for decades, with pretty much the same abysmal results: a steady decline in per capita income, agricultural production, food production, and many other areas as well."
Somalia, described by the World Bank as "the quintessential failed state," also perfectly illustrates the point made by Vasquez. Between the 1960s and the early 1990s, Somalia was the "beneficiary" of huge loans from the World Bank; by 1987, those loans accounted for 37 percent of the country’s GNP. Siad Barre, the Marxist thug on whom the World Bank bestowed that beneficence, lived in opulent splendor even as the nation’s infrastructure rotted away.
The 1991 collapse of the Barre regime and the ensuing civil war resulted in an abortive UN-commanded "humanitarian" military intervention — following the formula described by Perkins, Conable, and Barnett.
But the constituency for that mission proved fragile, and the mission ended in the early 1990s. Confounding the expectations of globalist humanitarians, Somalia flourished precisely because of the "world community’s" neglect.
In Somalia, "the very absence of a government may have helped nurture an African oddity — a lean and efficient business sector that does not feed at a public trough controlled by corrupt officials," wrote Peter Maas in the May 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
Tele-communications, transportation, and shipping companies were organized up to provide services to the liberated private sector. Internet cafes have sprung up in Mogadishu. Private security firms helped businessmen protect their investments and property.
A recent World Bank study grudgingly admitted: "Somalia boasts lower rates of extreme poverty and, in some cases, better infrastructure than richer countries in Africa." This is almost certainly because it is not cursed with a World Bank-subsidized central government to siphon away the nation’s wealth. "
Wolfowitz at the World Bank's Door by William Norman Grigg - The New American
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário