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John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man provided the historical context for understanding the current debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries. Now, with public and political support for initial debt relief at an all-time high, and the G8’s recent agreement to double aid to Africa by 2010, things seem to be looking up. Right? Wrong.
The Empire’s New Clothes
by John Perkins
Many people have asked me: is the current move to forgive Third World debt an indication that the EHM are losing? On the contrary, I'm sorry to have to say that it shows a new level of sophistication on the part of the EHM. I certainly favor the idea of forgiving those debts—which, we must remember, were accumulated without the consent of the majority of the people in those countries and served to make the corporatocracy and a few wealthy Third World families even richer—but that is not what this is all about. The G8, World Bank, and IMF are once again exploiting these nations, and they are calling it “debt forgiveness.” They are insisting on “conditionalities” that are cloaked in phrases like “good governance,” “sound economics,” and “trade liberalization.”
While the language is enticing, it is also terribly deceptive. These policies are “good” and “sound” only if you are a looking at them through rosy corporate glasses. The countries that agree to such conditionalities are called upon to privatize their health, education, electricity, water, and other public services—in other words, sell them to the corporatocracy. They are forced to drop subsidies and trade restrictions that support local businesses while at the same time accepting that the U.S. and other G8 countries can continue to subsidize our businesses and erect trade barriers on imports that threaten our industries.
When Bolivia gave in to such "good governance” policies, it opened the door for Bechtel and other multinationals to “privatize” —buy—its water supply system. Prices of water skyrocketed and Bolivians claimed that service was suspended to some neighborhoods. In Cote d'Ivoire, the French firm that bought the assets of the privatized telephone company raised prices so high that many people had to forego connections to the system, including university students who could not afford Internet access essential for their studies. In Tanzania, these policies led to the appalling situation where children have to pay to go to school, and many are simply too poor to do so. Similar stories abound in the countries that have accepted the conditionalities that come as a prerequisite to what is being toted as debt forgiveness.
One of the shocking things about this new sham is that so many people seem willing to accept it, rather than seeing it for what it truly is—an EHM ploy. It is almost as though all the celebrities and journalists want to believe that a new order is emerging, when in fact this is simply the latest and perhaps most subtle step along the road to world empire.
The Third World, however, is conscious of what is going on—and they are angry. The resistance to the July 2005 G8 meetings in Scotland is, to a large degree, an expression of anger against the deceptions. Many people believe that Blair and Bush are simply playing “good guy, bad guy” in an attempt to legitimatize a highly exploitative system that is balanced heavily in favor of the multinational corporations at the expense of the poor, downtrodden, and starving around the world.
When will we in the U.S.—which is the coach and captain of the G8 corporatocracy team—demand that our leaders fess up to their lies? When will we admit to the deeper truth behind 9/11, the Madrid and London bombings, and so many other acts of violence—that they may be perpetrated by mass-murdering criminals, but they continue to happen only because millions of people are desperate and are silently applauding? When will someone point the finger and say, “Look at that, Dad, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes”?
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