From gipfelsoli-l at lists.nadir.org  Mon Apr 24 11:34:02 2006
From: gipfelsoli-l at lists.nadir.org (gipfelsoli-l@lists.nadir.org)
Date: Mon Apr 24 11:34:12 2006
Subject: [gipfelsoli] IWF/ Weltbank
Message-ID: <20060424113402.pup3ctrj18s8444c@webmail.nadir.org>

- Weltbanktreffen am 1.-2. Juni in Hamburg
- Weltbank/IWF Frühjahrstreffen Washington DC

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Weltbanktreffen am 1.-2. Juni in Hamburg

Am 1.-2. Juni trifft sich das 8. deutsche Weltbankforum in Hamburg. Gastgeber
sind der Hamburger Senat und die Hamburger Handelskammer. Das deutsche
Weltbankforum trifft sich alle zwei Jahre in unterschiedlichen deutschen
Städten. Bisher fand es in Nordreinwestfalen, in Petersberg (bei Bonn), in
Berlin, München, Stuttgart, Berlin, und München statt.

Das diesjährige Treffen steht unter dem Motto "Möglichkeiten und
Herausforderungen der Zusammenarbeit mit Staaten des nahen und mittleren
Ostens".

Die Hamburger Polizei hat sich schon gegenüber der "Welt" mit folgenden
statements geäußert: "Die Weltbank gehört klar zum Feindbild der linken Szene",
"Wir müssen davon ausgehen, daß die Szene die Tagung zu einem Thema machen wird,
für das weit über die Stadtgrenze Hamburgs hinaus mobilisiert wird",
"Dementsprechend müssen wir uns auf Demonstrationen einstellen, auch unter
Beteiligung militanter Teilnehmer."

Quellen:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20853012~menuPK:34482~pagePK:34370~piPK:34425~theSitePK:4607,00.html
http://www.hk24.de/HK24/HK24/produktmarken/index.jsp?url=http%3A//www.hk24.de/HK24/HK24/produktmarken/international/kooperationen_geschaeftsvermittlung/veranstaltungshinweise/8th_German_World_Bank_Forum/index.jsp
http://www.welt.de/data/2006/04/15/874381.html


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Weltbank/IWF Frühjahrstreffen Washington DC

Wie jedes Jahr Ende April fand auch diesmal wieder das Früjahrs-Treffen
(spring-meeting) von Weltbank und Internationalem Weltwährungsfond in
Washington statt.
Die Weltbankgipfel sind spätestens seit Seattle regelmäßig von Protesten
begleitet. Unmittelbar nach Seattle waren die Proteste beim Frühjahrstreffen im
April 2000 - begleitet von einem globalen Aktionstag "A16" - besonders groß.
Doch bereits da wurde offensichtlich, daß das ganz breite Bündnis, welches in
Seattle noch die Welthandelskonferenz gänzlich zum scheitern brachte, nicht
mehr möglich war.

Neben den 'spring-meetings' gibt es die großen Jahres-Treffen jeweils im
September, die in der Regel auch in Washington stattfinden, darüberhinaus aber
alle drei Jahre auch außerhalb der USA. In guter Erinnerung dürfte vielen der
Weltbank/IWF Gipfel in Prag im September 2000 sein. Damals wurde, fast ähnlich
wie in Seattle, aufgrund erfolgreicher Proteste und Blockaden das Treffen
vorzeitig abgebrochen.

Auch werden sich manche vielleicht noch an das IWF/Weltbanktreffen in Berlin
1988 erinnern. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war die Mobilisierung nicht in diesem Maße
international gewesen, eine nachträgliche Analyse mag, wie auch die der
"Köln99" Mobilisierung hilfreich sein, nicht zuletzt im Hinblick auf "unseren"
nächsten G8 Gipfel in Heiligendamm 2007.

Die Weltbank ist ein Zusammenschluß von mehreren Banken Gruppen (zusammen mit
dem IWF in Bretton Woods gegründet). Dazu gehören mehrere Kontinentale und
Inter-kontinentale Bankemgruppen wie z.b. für Europa die EBRD (Stichwort
"Tschernobyl") oder für Nord- und Südamerika die IADB oder IDB
(Inter-Amerikanische Entwicklungsbank) Letztere hat jüngst ihr Jahrestreffen in
Belo Horozonte abgehalten, begleitet von Protesten und Polizeirepression
[siehe http://brasil.indymedia.org/]

Diesesmal waren die Proteste in Washington offenbar nicht so breit - es gab
unmittelbar zuvor bereits sehr große Demonstrationen gegen den Krieg und
außerdem gegen das neue anti migrations gesetz - dafür gab es einige gelungene
direkte aktionen, wie z.b. die Störung der Pressekonferenz von Wolfowitz.

unten , in englisch, ein Bericht von der Aktion, nebst einigen Berichten, was
Konzerne mit Weltbank-Geldern so alles anstellen...

weitere infos: [url= http://dc.indymedia.org]indymedia Washingron[/url] | [url=
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/imf/washington2006/index.html]PGA[/url]
| http://breakthebank.wordpress.com/

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World Bank Finances Corruption - Activists Disrupt World Bank President Paul
Wolfowitz's Press Conference
Morrigan | 21 Apr 2006 - dc.indymedia.org

On Thursday April 20th World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz headlined an opening
press conference of the Annual Spring meetings of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund here in Washington DC. A short while into his
speech two Washington DC based activists, one with the Mobilization for Global
Justice and the other with a local non-profit, leapt onto their seats and
unfurled a banner that read "World Bank Finances Corporate Corruption!" while
chanting "corporate corruption! Who can we thank? The IMF and the World Bank!"
The protestors never turned their backs on Wolfowitz while they were removed by
IMF security. All the while they also continued to yell and chant. Other civil
society participants began to join the chanting too. The press immediately
began to follow the protestors out of the room. They snapped pictures and
frantically recorded what the activists were saying.

What followed the protestor's removal was described by one attendee as "mayhem".
Support people for the protestors began to hand out a statement explaining the
action and holding mini impromptu press conference with the dozens of press
that had followed the protestors out of the room. Other press who were not in
the room at the time of the action came sprinting down the hall way in the
hopes of catching the action. IMF and World Bank civil society liaisons
frantically tried to curtail the activities of the activists. One IMF staff
person looked at those seated in the civil society chairs that were not a part
of the action and shouted quiet shrilly "you civil society people are so
screwed!" Another IMF staff person, while looking rather frantic shouted "this
is not supposed to be happening! There is no security in here!"

The two protestors who had dropped the banner meanwhile had been escorted to
another room, had there credentials taken and were lead out the main door of
the IMF building. Shortly after they left other activists began to emerge. All
had also had their credentials revoked and been told to leave. One person who
did not have here credentials taken at the same time managed to make it back
in, use the IMF copy machine (free of charge) to make more copies of the
statement to leave on the table. She was then told to leave and had to release
her credentials.

High five's were given all around for a great action which garnered a lot of
support and attention. Several other representatives from non governmental
organizations came out to congratulate those who had dropped the banner.

Protestors chose today because Wolfowitz was speaking on his new initiative to
fight corruption. Their banner was a reminder of who really finances the
corruption that Wolfowitz is talking about combating. Below is the protestor's
statement.

Statement to be released April 20, 2006
World Bank Finances Corporate Corruption

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz seeks public acclaim for his campaign to
crack down on corruption. Unfortunately, his analysis ignores the cycle of
corruption involving the governments of the U.S. and other wealthy countries on
the World Bank Board of Governors and transnational corporations (TNCs) that
make substantial financial contributions to these governments and receive in
return lucrative investment opportunities, finance and legal protection from
the World Bank Group. The result is a long history of the World Bank using its
significant financing to support and promote the corporate activities of
wealthy countries, many of which have had harmful social and environmental
impacts, while providing lucrative contract opportunities related to Bank
financed projects.

Corporate entities in the member countries of the World Bank Board of Governors
make political campaign contributions and various other gifts available to
government officials in their home countries, often for the purpose of
accessing investment opportunities overseas. The revolving door among corporate
leaders, government officials and lobbyists further ensures pro-business public
policies and lucrative contracts to insider business interests. At the
international level, the most powerful Board members over the years have
directed the Bank to impose structural adjustment policies that demand of
borrowing countries the privatization and/or deregulation of public utilities
and other public infrastructure and support for lucrative oil, gas, mining and
dam projects that create a highly skewed investment climate favoring TNCs.

At the same time, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) loans
directly to, and otherwise supports transnational corporations that have been
known to make payments to government officials in order to win contracts to
take over privatized enterprises, to gain support for projects or to diminish
tax payments, royalties and government regulation of ongoing operations. In
turn, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank
protects transnational corporations from national legal actions that might
reduce expected profits. Furthermore, a transnational corporation facing a
dispute related to its practices may appeal to The World Bank's International
Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) that operates outside the
jurisdiction of domestic legal processes.

Corporations use their excessive profits in part to re-grease the skids of the
corruption cycle by continuing to pay Northern politicians that direct World
Bank policy. Sadly, the entire cycle makes a mockery of the World Bank's
mission of "a world free of poverty" and operates at the expense of local
populations in the South, particularly the poor and working class, and
taxpayers in the North, who are led to believe that their contributions help
reduce poverty.

Below are listed some recent examples of World Bank-financed corporate
corruption and abuse around the world:

WORLD-BANK FINANCED CORPORATE CORRUPTION & ABUSE 1990-2005
LAHMEYER AND ACRES, INTERNATIONAL - Corruption on the multi-dam Lesotho
Highlands Water Project (Southern Africa) has been rampant, with an estimated
$2 million in bribes being passed from up to a dozen international firms
working on the project to top project officials. The World Bank granted $8
million to help finance project design, set up the financial package, and lent
$110 million for the first dam. The Lesotho government has been diligent in
prosecuting both the bribed officials and the bribing companies, and two
foreign companies have so far been convicted in the Lesotho high court, with a
third now in the dock. But foot-dragging on the part of the World Bank to debar
the convicted companies has softened the impact of this high-profile case.
Lahmeyer International was indicted in March 2001, and convicted of corruption
in June 2003. After close to three years, including nine months under Paul
Wolfowitz' watch, the World Bank has still not taken any action against
Lahmeyer. The Bank only debarred the first company convicted on the project,
Canadian firm Acres, International, in 2004 - nearly two years after a guilty
sentence was handed down in Lesotho. After its conviction in Lesotho, Acres
received three contracts worth $400,000 from the World Bank, according to Susan
Hawley, a research consultant for the UK group The Corner House. Acres received
one contract just days before the debarment was handed down. The dams project
led to forcible displacement for some 20,000 rural people and affected the
livelihoods of many more. Those studying the project see a link between the
poor record of programs to restore livelihoods and compensate directly-affected
people and the project's widespread corruption.
NEWMONT MINING - In February 2006, ignoring the opposition of Ghanaian citizen
groups and international NGOs, the World Bank's IFC approved a US$75 million
loan to a subsidiary of Newmont Mining, the largest gold mining corporation in
the world. More than 9,000 people, many of them subsistence farmers, will be
displaced by the project. "The living conditions of the communities affected by
the Ahafo mine are already worsening even at the construction phase of the
project," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of the Wassa
Association of Communities affected by Mining, in Ghana. Communities are
concerned that the mine, which will use cyanide to extract gold, may pose a
serious risk to human health and the environment. An independent technical
review revealed that Newmont did not provide sufficient information to assess
risks of serious water contamination. More information:
www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press906.htm

The World Bank's IFC is also a shareholder in Newmont Mining's notorious
Peruvian operations, the second largest gold mine in the world and the largest
in Latin America. In 1998, Newmont allegedly paid Vladimar Montesinos to bribe
a judge to rule in its favor in an ownership dispute concerning the Yanacocha
mine, the indigenous name for the mountain where Newmont's Peruvian gold mining
operation is located. Montesinos, head of Peru's National Intelligence Service,
is on tape urging a Supreme Court Justice to vote in favor of Newmont or face
reprisals from the United States. The Yanacocha mine, which uses the cyanide
heap leaching method, has generated toxic waste that has polluted the local
water supply with heavy metals such as aluminum, zinc, copper, iron and
manganese at levels that significantly exceed the World Health Organization
(WHO) guidelines. In June 2000, almost 300 pounds of mercury accidentally
spilled from a company truck and Newmont failed to inform local residents.
Within 3 weeks between 200 and 300 people were hospitalized with mercury
poisoning. More information:
www.foei.org/publications/link/mining/22.html

AES CORPORATION - In December 2001 the World Bank's IFC provided US$ 115 million
to AES corporation, the largest independent power producer in the world, for the
construction of the Bujagali dam in Uganda. However, in August 2003, AES pulled
out of the project after corruption associated with one of its sub-contractors
was found. The deal was investigated by the Ugandan Government and the US
Justice Department. An independent review of the project, conducted by the
Prayas Energy Group determined that the deal would have made the Ugandan people
pay $20-$40 million extra per year compared to similar hydroelectric projects in
other parts of the world. The Ugandan population is among the poorest in the
world and World Bank internal reports noted that no more than 7% of Uganda's
population could afford unsubsidized electricity.AES Corporation has been one
of the biggest recipients of funding from the World Bank's IFC, totaling US$800
million since 1995. More information:
www.corpwatch.org

SHELL - Ignoring the objections of over 30 Nigerian organizations, in June 2001
the World Bank's IFC provided a US$15 million loan to finance a project
supporting companies that work for Shell's oil operations in Nigeria's Niger
Delta. Shell has been widely condemned for human rights abuses, including its
collusion with the Nigerian authorities for the mass murder of community people
impoverished as a result of the devastation of their natural environment and the
destruction of community sources of livelihood by Shell. Oil spills continue
regularly as a result of breakdown of old, ill-maintained pipelines, oil wells,
and other facilities resulting in devastating damage to forests, wetlands,
farmlands and other areas. This loan created the Niger Delta Contractor
Revolving Credit Facility which facilitates subcontracting to local
contractors. The pattern of award of contracts to local contractors by Shell
suggests a strategy of bribery of influential individuals within communities
who then become agents of destabilization within their communities. More
information:
www.bicusa.org/bicusa/issues/NDCRCF Factsheet Formatted&

EXXON MOBIL - In 2000, the IBRD and IFC provided $3.7 billion to finance the
Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, jumpstarting the country's entry into the oil
industry. Civil society in Chad fought the project, warning that expanding the
oil industry in an unstable country without democratic institutions that would
enable the people of Chad to hold their government accountable, would funnel
cash to a government with a history of human rights abuses. Their warnings have
come true. An Exxon-Mobil-led consortium of oil companies paid the government a
$25 million "signing bonus" to seal the deal. Those funds went directly to
purchase arms and office refurbishment for government ministers. President Deby
has continued to use profits from the oil industry to build the military,
prioritizing spending on security over education, health, or other programs
that might lift the people of Chad, where average income is barely over $1,000
per year, out of poverty. Last year, the Chadian parliament circumvented rules
written to ensure civil-society participation in how oil revenues are spent to
prioritize security spending to fund an expanding conflict with Sudan. Of the
$3.7 billion invested in the pipeline, only a one-time cash payment of $6.3
million has gone to the people and villages in Chad affected by the pipeline.
The World Bank suspended loans and accounts linked to Chad in January of this
year, yet the profits are still flowing to Exxon-Mobil and consortium oil
companies - they are still pumping 200,000 barrels a day out of Chad. More
information:
www.transafricaforum.org/reports/globalmonitor22003.pdf

BRITISH PETROLEUM (BP) - BP is the largest of 11 partners forming the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Company) that is constructing a
billion dollar pipeline project to transport oil from the Caspian Sea to the
Turkish port city of Ceyhan. The World Bank's IFC approved US$125 million for
the BTC Company in November 2003 despite legal challenges to the project,
corruption claims, and opposition from numerous local community groups and
NGOs. There are concerns regarding potential pollution of water sources (the
pipeline crosses more than 30 rivers and traverses major seismic fault lines),
disputes regarding the land compensation process for the people that will be
dislocated, and allegations of corruption. The Committee of Oil Industry
Workers' Rights Protection in Azerbaijan says: "We are afraid of this loan
because this huge amount of money flowing into a completely corrupted
environment could only support the corruption practices, worsen the human
rights situation and cause violations of the law". More information:
www.bicusa.org/bicusa/issues/bakutbilisiceyhan_btc_pipeline_project_azerbaijangeorgiaturkey/index.php

ENRON - The World Bank's IFC provided a US$71 million loan to ENRON for
construction and privatization of a power plant in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala in
1993. ENRON paid "commissions" to a shadowy company called Sun King, closely
connected to Guatemalan President Serrano, in order to win the contract. Later
that year President Serrano proposed an increase in electricity rates that
totaled as much as 100% for some customers. This was one of the many grievances
which drove Guatamalan citizens to the streets in the spring of 1993. When
President Serrano responded by declaring martial law and dissolving the
Congress, the military wouldn't go along. Serrano fled the country and the rate
increases were eventually suspended much to the relief of the 40% of the
population that lives on less than US$2 a day in that country. More
information:
www.corpwatch.org/article.php

CORRUPTION AND DEBT - If President Wolfowitz is truly concerned about corruption
in Indonesia or other impoverished countries, the World Bank must acknowledge
its role in fostering corruption by lending to kleptocratic and repressive
regimes such as Suharto's. The Bank's lending to Suharto enabled the Indonesian
military to continue its involvement in businesses, illegal and legal, receive
protection payoffs from foreign corporations, and remain largely unaccountable
to its civilian leadership. The US Senate has found that $100 billion of World
Bank loans have been lost to corruption in the Bank's sixty-year history. In US
Senate testimony, Northwestern University professor Jeffrey Winters found that
at least one-third of World Bank loans to Suharto were stolen by his regime.
Thus a comprehensive approach to corruption would include not only a framework
to cancel odious debts but the development and implementation of clear
standards for responsible lending, assuring transparency/accountability, human
rights, and environmental sustainability to avoid the creation of new odious
debts in the future. More information:
www.jubileeusa.org/take_action/Indonesiaodious.pdf
lugar.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm
www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2004/ WintersTestimony040513.pdf

The cases listed above are just the tip of the iceburg. They should not be seen
as a representative or comprehensive documentation of corporate corruption
financed by the World Bank nor should they be viewed as a comprehensive list of
projects with detrimental social and environmental impacts. Large water
privatization projects benefiting major TNCs such as Suez and Vivendi/Veolia
undermine the human right to water, agribusiness operations of Cargill or
Monsanto promote palm oil, soy plantations, shrimp farming or other forms of
export monoculture that destroy forests, wetlands and local economies, and
policy "reforms" that promote trade liberalization, privatization and
de-regulation have wreaked social, economic and environmental havoc across the
world. The problem of World Bank financed corporate corruption has deep
systemic roots - much larger than the institution itself - and it cannot be
resolved by a mere tweaking of policy. However, at bare minimum, an end to the
financing of projects with negative social and environmental impacts and rapid
action to disbar companies found guilty of malpractice, fraud or bribery would
be essential.

[indymedia.de, von anro - 23.04.2006 23:22]

