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IMF Dodges on Green Fund Stasis and Haiti Debt Relief Delay, Jamaica Question Ignored

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 1 -- The IMF remains a palace of spin. On most questions, IMF staff refer back to earlier evasive statements by "the Managing Director" Dominique Strauss-Kahn, which are even less responsive to the resulting follow-up questions. Thursday this happened on Haiti and the "green fund" proposal, while a timely submitted question about Jamaica wasn't even taken.

On March 31 at the UN in New York, Inner City Press asked Strauss-Kahn why the IMF had not yet forgiven Haiti's debt, and about the negative impacts of previous IMF conditionalities on Haiti, destroying among other things its rice industry. Strauss-Kahn's vague answer to the first question, and dismissive rejection of the latter, were reported yesterday.

As luck would have it, the IMF had its bi-weekly press briefing on April 1. Inner City Press asked, and IMF spokesman Gerry Rice read out in full without attribution, "At the UN yesterday Mr. Strauss-Kahn said that the IMF has yet to forgive Haiti's debt. By contrast, the IADB has already forgiven $479 million. Can you explain the IMF's delay, and exactly what Executive Board meeting it will be, when Strauss-Kahn will actually propose forgiving Haiti's debt?"

Thereupon Mr. Rice said, "I'd like to refer you to the statement we issued yesterday for the Managing Director" that IMF staff is preparing a framework for the Executive Board on the issue of Haitian debt relief.

But this does not, as request, say which Executive Board meeting Strauss Kahn is aiming at, nor does it explain the IADB's relative speed. The IADB's representative told Inner City Press the IADB could move fast because foreign ministers met in Cancun. But there have been IMF Executive Board meetings since the Haitian earthquake.

Inner City Press asked Rice to "confirm or deny" a media account that "member countries of the International Monetary Fund thumbed down March 25 a proposal to gather $100 billion a year starting 2020 to help poor nations adapt to the effects of climate change."

Rice putted out an "if-asked" sheet of paper and said that "as the Managing Director has repeatedly said, climate change is in important issue."


Strauss Kahn earlier at the UN, on surely another important issue

 He then said that the IMF staff position published is an idea "purely for consideration by the international community," the IMF's "contribution to the broader public debate." With contributions like that, and (for now) $2.25, you can get on the subway in New York.

Inner City Press thrice submitted, but got no acknowledgement of much less answer to, this question: "Jamaica's finance minister has said the country has "met all of the IMF's conditions." Is that accurate? What happens next?" Watch this site.

From the IMF's transcript:

INNER CITY PRESS ONLINE QUESTIONER: At the U.N. yesterday, Mr. Strauss-Kahn said that the IMF has yet to forgive Haiti’s debt. By contrast, the IABD has already forgiven $479 million. Can you explain the IMF’s delay and exactly what Executive Board Meeting it will be when Mr. Strauss-Kahn will actually propose forgiving Haiti’s debt?

MR. RICE: In response to this question, I’d really like to refer you to the statement that we issued yesterday from the Managing Director when he attended the high-level conference in New York City. And on the issue of debt relief, what he had said was that there was a framework--staff was preparing a framework to be put forward for consideration by the IMF Executive Board on the issue of debt relief and the IMF...

INNER CITY PRESS ONLINE QUESTIONER: Can you please confirm or deny that member countries of the IMF thumbed down on March 25 a proposal to gather USD100 billion a year starting 2020 to help poor nations adapt to the effects of climate change?

MR. RICE: On this one, what I’d like to say is as the Managing Director has said many times, climate change is an important issue of global concern. Our contribution is that we look to the particular issue of how to help developing countries finance the challenges posed by climate change. And the recently published staff position note outlined a potential staff proposal, and the ideas set out in this note are being offered purely for consideration by the international community and as a contribution to the broader public debate.




* * *

On Haiti, IMF's Strauss-Kahn Dodges on Debt Forgiveness, Past Conditions' Harm

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 -- Amid the congratulatory talk about help to Haiti at the UN on March 31, it emerged that the International Monetary Fund has yet to forgive Haiti's now over $270 million in debt to the IMF, while by contrast the Inter American Development Bank has forgiven all of its $479 million in loans to Haiti.

  Inner City Press asked the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn why the IMF's loans had yet to be forgiven, and to address the IMF's previous conditionalities on Haiti which results, experts say, in the destruction of the country's rice industry.

  Strauss-Kahn scoffed at the latter question, saying that this -- a press stakeout in front of the pledging conference in the UN's Trusteeship Council Chamber -- was not the place to discussion conditionality. On the still unforgiven loans, he argued that they are not due until 2012, and bragged that Rene Preval is happy with the IMF's, and presumably his, performance.

  After the stakeout, Strauss-Kahn made a point of hanging around with President Preval in the hallway in front of the Trusteeship Council.


UN's Ban, Zoellick and Strauss-Kahn, IMF debt forgiveness not yet shown

  Soon, the representative of the IADB came out, and confirmed that full forgiveness of $479 million in loans. Inner City Press asked, what explained the IABD's fast forgiveness, and the IMF's continued delay?

   The IADB representative diplomatically mentioned the meeting of finance ministers in Cancun. But there are been a number of IMF Executive Board meetings and/or actions since Haiti's earthquake.

Some question whether Strauss-Kahn's perhaps related fixation on Greece -- where he's said the IMF would "intervene" if asked -- and his personal political trajectory, not only vis a vis Nicolas Sarkozy but also Martine Aubry, have made him and the IMF slow on Haiti. One wouldn't know it from Wednesday's bluster, but facts... are facts. Watch this site.

* * *
For IMF, Canceling Haiti's Debt is Medium Term Goal, Outcome Uncertain, UN's IFAD, Venezuela and Taiwan Are Creditors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 21 -- While the IMF's Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn rushed out a statement that the "IMF is now working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt," on Thursday morning his spokesperson Caroline Atkinson called this a "medium range" goal.

She emphasized that Strauss-Kahn cannot predict how the IMF board will vote, when it meets next week. She mentioned the outstanding bilateral loan to Haiti of Venezuela, but not Taiwan's reported $92 million loan. Taiwan is of particular interest in light of mainland China's dispatch to Haiti of a 125 member "riot squad" fomed police unit, a senior delegation there on the day of the earthquake, and a search and rescue team the day after.

  Among Haiti's creditors is the UN system's International Fund for Agricultural Development. Even as the UN has done into "Haiti only" mode for the past nine days, there's been no talk of canceling the UN's own loans to Haiti.

  Strauss-Kahn's "Marshall Plan" comments have been portrayed by some progressives -- or "anti-poverty" activists, as one reporter at the IMF's January 21 briefing phrased it -- as a victory for online activism. But Strauss-Kahn's grand statement may mean less than first appeared.

  Inner City Press submitted several questions to the IMF during its January 21 briefing, held in a new broadcast center, about Haiti as well as Romania, Iceland and Serbia. While Ms. Aktinson read out and at least purported to respond to Inner City Press' Romania question, this Haiti question was ignored:

The M-D has said "IMF is now working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt." What exactly is the IMF doing, with the IADB, IFAD, Venezuela and Taiwan? When does the IMF anticipate canceling its $265 million in loans? Do any of the past conditions apply to the first $165 million?

 Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press March 12 UN (and AIG bailout) debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Feb. 12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56

Click here for Inner City Press' Jan. 16, 2009 debate about Gaza

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here for Inner City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

Click here for Inner City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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