Alternative Perspective
 Issue 9, November 20, 2002
 Compiled byMadhukar Shukla

Introduction: Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested.



Note: As per the request by a few subscribers, the URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • Victims of Development
     According to World Bank estimates, around 10 million people are displaced every year due to Development Projects - a figure which far outnumbers the annual number of political refugees. This article by Arundhati Roy about the Sardar Sarovar Dam on Narmada River in India, provides an interesting example of how Development creates its own victims. Moreover, this is also not a solitary case: there are similar reports about the social impacts of Dam projects from around the world, which one would find at the International Network on Displacement and Resettlement site [1].
    http://www.ahmedabad.com/news/july/23arundhati2.htm

  • World Bank/ IMF Fact Sheet
    Since they were established as a part of Bretton Wood Conference, more than 50 years ago, these two powerful institutions have been spearheading the agenda of Globalisation - or as this factsheet points out, playing the role of "reverse Robinhood" [2] (don't miss the table, when you scroll down the page). Given the facts - e.g., G-7 countries own 40-45% votes in IMF, US Treasury has 51% stakes in World Bank, etc. - there is some justification in the criticism... While earlier, this discontent with their activities, was only limited to the anti-globalisation lobby, in recent times, even mainstream media has been raising questions about the "solutions" IMF/WB offer - as this article from Washington Post [3] shows.
    http://www.globalexchange.org/wbimf/facts.html

  • US and International Criminal Court
    It is somewhat ironical that the idea of a International Criminal Court was proposed by one of its current storngest opponent - United States - during the Nuremberg trials. By "unsigning" an ICC treaty this year, US became the first nation in the history to have removed its sovereign signatures from an international treaty (In a letter to the United Nations Secretary General, the US undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton wrote, "The United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United states has no legal obligations from its signature on December 31, 2000."!!!). To be fair, US has reasons to resist the ICC and such other bodies which would make it accountable: in 1992, former US Attorney General, Ramsay Clark, had submitted a report to Commission of Inquiry for the International Crimes Tribunal, confirming 19 War Crimes against US during the Gulf War [4]. What gives a surrealistic touch to the issue is the fact that back in 2000, US planned to bring Saddam Hussein to the International Criminal Tribunal for war crimes [5] - and perhaps is still planning to do so.
    http://www.globalpolicy.org/intljustice/icc/2002/1009notenough.htm

  • The Economics of Global Famine
    Contrary to the popular view that world hunger is due to "food shortage", it seems to be paradoxically due to the global market forces and an over-supply of staple grains, which takes away the local means of subsistence, impoverishes the farmers, destroys communities and kills the national agriculture. As the next article shows, the global poverty and famine is also triggered by the "Structural Adjustment Programmes" which force farmers to shift from growing grains to "cash crops" (e.g., coffee)...
    http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1995/215/215p15.htm

  • The Coffee We Drink
    When grain-farming goes corporate, it makes sense - at least, in the short run - for the small farmers to turn to "cash crops" like coffee. But since, this is a trend world-over, the market economics takes over, and, as this story shows, the prices crash. Naturally, such fruits of globalsiation are a boon to the customers - no, not the customer who drinks coffee, but the customer who buys coffee beans (the corporates), since the coffee prices in the market keep rising [6] ...So next time, when you sit in a Starbuck Cafe, or buy our jar of Nescafe, do pay a silent thanks to the guy who paid the price for it and made it possible - the farmer.
    http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee/news2001/gx100001.html


    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1]: http://www.displacement.net/Subpages/resettlement_dams.htm
    [2]: http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PII.jsp?topicid=111
    [3]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20352-2002Sep29?language=printer
    [4]: http://www.deoxy.org/wc/wc-toc.htm
    [5]: http://www.iraqfoundation.org/forum/intlpress/2000/emay/04_usplans.html
    [6]: http://www.jubilee2000uk.org/worldnews/africa/burning_coffee.htm

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