Global Policy Forum

By Etambuyu Anamela Gundersen

Dr. Kaunda has called upon the north to strive and give a human face to global institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking at the Open Forum in Oslo yesterday at a meeting of non-governmental organisations and reaserchers opposed to the poverty creating policies of the World Bank and IMF, Zambia's first president Dr Kenneth Kaunda said in the implementation of IMF and World Bank conditionalities, recipient countries have been subjected to the brutal looting of their economies with the countries that owe money loosing an element of sovereignty and an over bearing debt burden with chilling figures as in case of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Quoting extensively from research by authorities on issues of debt relief and the effects of IMF and World Bank policies, Dr. Kaunda gave examples from Russia to Argentina, Thailand and Zambia on how these countries' economies plunged into turmoil once adopting IMF and World Bank policies.

Dr Kaunda told the delegates of his struggles to steer Zambia out of its debt burden whilst president and decided that only 10 per cent of the country's revenue would go to debt servicing until such a time that the country's economy was viable enough to allow for the increment in debt servicing.

He said his govt embarked on a new programme called "Growth from our own resources" which targeted agriculture as a top priority which within 9 months saw the rise in the gross domestic product (GDP) from almost nothing to 6 per cent. Dr Kaunda lamented on how this initiative was met with threats from global financial institutions and eventually saw him out of office.

He told the delegates that his task was to go as far as he could with the IMF without putting on the Zambian people a burden that they could not bear, which was a delicate balance that lead to his breaking of relations with the IMF and World Bank in 1985.

He told the Open Forum that Zambia was punished and isolated by these global institutions as under pressure, all Western donor countries stopped any assistance to the country and joined a campaign to oust his government began by the then apartheid regime in South Africa to give power to the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) which accepted all conditionalities of the World Bank and IMF without reservations. Dr Kaunda said he had no regrets as his government fought on principle.

He warned that any government that tries to resist the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will be removed by those forces which benefit from exploitation and oppression by these global institutions, which he feared was what the government of Robert Mugabe was experiencing. He paid homage to countries like China, Malaysia and Zimbabwe who are fighting the IMF and other financial institutions.

Dr. Kaunda said he had no intention of triggering conflict between the south and the global giants of the world but noted that aid given to developing countries is not an answer to the problem of a fair deal in trade. He called for the breaking of the protective barriers.

"The current system of globalisation can only be seen in terms of a slave and master relationship, horse and rider...and I guess we all know who the horse and who the rider is," Dr. Kaunda said. "I am calling upon the north to strive to give a human face to these global financial organisations."

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