Thoughts from London

Another occasion and another smoke screen
Would you believe it? Sri Lankan politics might have deposited (temporarily at least) Milinda Moragoda in the dustbin of history. Not so the Norwegians. Those who came as peaceful peacemakers have, like the camel that first put only its head into the tent and then humps and all, seem to want a bigger place in history.

Between paying their regular pilgrimages to the Wanni they are also picking our best brains. A news report last Sunday said that Moragoda had been invited by the Norwegian prime minister to join a high-powered committee to fight global poverty.

Personally I would have dismissed this as arrant nonsense and media sensationalism as Miguel Bermeo, the UN’s man in Colombo, is wont to say.
Or maybe, just maybe, the Norwegian prime minister, in a sudden moment of mental disequilibrium, had chosen Moragoda to help change the world and make poverty history, as Tony Blair keeps mouthing.

People cannot be blamed if they ask themselves whether the Norwegian prime minister had taken leave of his senses. After all nobody in his right mind would seek Moragoda’s help in reducing poverty. It would be as ridiculous as expecting the Norwegian facilitators to be impartial and objective in their present role.

Moragoda is a proponent of neo-liberal economic views. His penchant for globalisation and privatisation hardly makes him a suitable candidate for the task seeing that his kind of prescription has already caused havoc in several developing countries.Perhaps Prime Minister Bondevik was misled by television images of Moragoda visiting the countryside (Sri Lankan not American) and seemingly listening to hapless villagers tell him of the economic burdens heaped on them by the government in which he served as minister of economic reforms.

Or perhaps Bondevik had been informed by the Norwegian embassy in Colombo that as minister of economic reform, the reformation he spearheaded brought about an economic renaissance that made the rich even richer.

What better capitalist point man could sit on this commission as a counterpoint to the presence of former Chinese premier Zhu Ronghi (who is hardly likely to endorse legally empowering the poor) and Ernesto Zedillo.
What better candidate than one from a developing country who is a faithful worshipper at the altar of globalisation and the free market so assiduously advanced from Washington’s twin towers of economic neo-liberalism- the World Bank and IMF.

Like a knight in shining armour from the Arthurian days, Moragoda has promptly accepted the life threatening task and was said to be headed for Switzerland (where some of the corrupt have their numbered bank accounts) armed with his own Excaliber to slay the dragon of poverty by giving legal sanctity to the world’s poor.

The promptness with which Moragoda appears to have accepted the role comes as no surprise. While still a minister he publicly confessed that when the American ambassador summoned him, he did not stop to ask why but went at once. Sounds curiously Macbethian: “Stand not upon the order of your going/ but go at once.”

So now it is the Norwegian summons that he answers with such promptitude. I remember reading that Moragoda as minister once proposed handing over the running of our national lottery to the Norwegians. If true, it would perfectly fit with his economic worldview.

Was his decision to serve in any way influenced by the presence of former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright as a commission co-chair. It seems the Norwegians love co-chairs. See how many co-chairs we have in our donor community. There were four at the last count.

Some might see this as a great honour for Sri Lanka. But look beneath the veneer of righteousness. This commission is what Sri Lankans would call “as ban dung”. A rather tame translation would read “eye wash.”
It will turn out to be another diversion by the rich western nations as the forthcoming G8 summit chaired by the UK. All these are attempts to hoodwink the poor, developing nations of world that the rich are concerned about their economic and social plight.

People world wide rightly ask how genuine these concerns are, whether the rhetoric they hear from the pulpits of western capitals will ever translate into real, tangible policies that erase decades of damage that free market capitalism has done and continues to do, to the economies of the poor nations, particularly in Africa.

It seems inconceivable that those adherents of Hayek and the latter day gurus of laissez-faire and globalisation could ever implement policies that will benefit the poor and make real changes to the structures that make poor people poor.

Just as the G8 is trying to disguise the real issues that need to be addressed if Africa is to rise from the ashes, the Norwegians are sending another smoke screen to hide the actual reasons for poverty with their own exercise in window dressing.

What is this commission trying to do? Secure legal empowerment of the poor. How are they going to do it and why? “The formalisation of the user and property rights with a focus on the poor and the marginalized is an important means of promoting economic and social development.”
Nice, honeyed words. How absurd to talk of property rights when World Bank and IMF policies have been to drive people off their lands with the kind of land reform the Bank tried in Brazil with disastrous results. It led to the accumulation of large acres of fertile lands in the hands of rich owners leaving the poor dispossessed or with uncultivable land.

Elsewhere they have tried to drive people off their lands by advocating changes in crops and often turning small land-owners into paid labour. If the IMF had had its way, small paddy farmers would have been dispossessed and they would grow export crops or sell their labour.
What on earth is the use of legal rights when many developing country governments are in hock to the World Bank and IMF and Washington makes the policy decisions?

So what do the poor do with their legal rights? Go for litigation against governments backed by a battery of lawyers and, in some countries, by the judiciary itself.

Alternatively, like in Bolivia and spreading to other parts of Latin America, take to the streets as the only means of protest available. Where legal rights –If they exist -- are no redress, mass dissent might be the only route left.

Then protestors would have the right to be beaten up or shot down with arms sold to poor nations and to authoritarian regimes by western arms suppliers such as the UK and Norway. British arms sales to Africa have reached record levels in the last four years topping £1 billion.

Norway is rich, has oil money. Like the new rich, money is not enough. It desperately needs a status on the world stage as a player of some significance. So it spends its wealth to win friends and influence people but hides its real intentions under a guise of moral rectitude and humanitarian concern.

First it tried its hand at peace in the Middle East. That is in pieces. Having failed in Sri Lanka too, Oslo is now turning to dealing with poverty.
For those whose ancestors were exploiters and plunderers, peace and poverty have become the new slogans to gain some respect. Oh yes, they will find some faithful followers, among NGOs that smell money, in particular. But most people in the developing world will not be hoodwinked by such western duplicity.

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