G-17 member Dr. Zeliko Bogetic has a senior position at the International Monetary Fund. Bogetic has been doctor in many economic cures. The patient always dies.
In 1994-96, he played a key role in forcing a structural adjustment program (SAP) on Bulgaria. All social defenses—price controls, subsidized food, housing and medical care, were stripped away.
The program led to mass poverty. By 1997, old age pensions (according to World Bank sources) had collapsed to two dollars a month. The World Bank admits that 90 percent of Bulgarians now live below the extreme poverty level but, they say, much economic progress is being made. Apparently perfection will be achieved when there are no Bulgarians left alive.
What would Mr. Bogetic do if he and his G-17 colleagues came to power under a “democratic” opposition government?
Bogetic was dispatched by the International Monetary Fund to Podgorica, Montenegro to advise the pro-secessionist government of President Milo Djukanovic. Bogetic was to set up a currency board modeled on that of Bosnia under the Dayton Accord. Bogetic's advice was to stop using the Dinar, the Yugoslav currency. He said that under no circumstances should Montenegro establish a Central Bank. Now remember, the Djukanovic government in Montenegro says it wants “independence” from Yugoslavia—but a Central Bank is a requirement for real independence. No, said Bogetic, that is the “worst possible solution”. Meaning: independence in the colonial sense.
Bogetic would be the likely candidate for Yugoslav Central Bank Governor if the “democratic” opposition were to win.
What would he do?
The same thing he's been doing in Montenegro—establish a colonial style currency board linked to the Deutschmark. Then monetary policy would be controlled by the country's creditors. This would be an excellent state of affairs for the creditors, but very bad for the common people. It would make it impossible to finance economic reconstruction through the mobilization of Yugoslavia's own domestic resources. The country would be in a straightjacket.
What would International Monetary Fund-Type Reforms mean for Yugoslavia? If the “democratic opposition” came to power they would enforce International Monetary Fund economic medicine. That's what they say in their Program.
But would this be the same medicine that the Fund (including some of the people who lead the G-17) have prescribed for Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine?
Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine cooperated fully with Washington. As nations, they never resisted being turned into colonies. Was the West merciful?
Consider Russia. During the first year that the reforms were applied, 1992, wages collapsed by 86 percent. And in many of the countries of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, economic activity has been cut in half, even if it was low before.
And these are cooperative countries. As everyone knows, the U.S. is very annoyed with Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia has not been a good slave. It has not kissed the hand of the bombers.
History shows that if the Monetary Fund gets hold of a country that has been rebellious the treatment is vicious. And we are not talking about major rebels, like Yugoslavia. We are talking about very moderate rebels, like Peru.
In Peru, the government of President Alan Garcia (1985-1990) refused to do some of what the International Monetary Fund ordered it to do. In 1985, it decided to pay international debts at a reduced rate. It instituted an economic program that would help (instead of destroying) the economy.
The country was immediately put on a black list by the International Monetary Fund. This disrupted Peru's foreign trade.
Enter Professor Alberto Fujimori. It was the 1990 elections. With help from Washington, Peru was having economic problems, so many people wanted a change. Fujimori was an unknown. People felt he was “honest” and “promising”. He led a tiny party that had never held power. He seemed to be squeaky clean.
With Washington's help, he was the top runner-up in the 1990 elections. The electorate chose him over the other candidates “because we did not know who he was” and “we thought he was honest” and “maybe if we put in someone Washington likes they will go easy on us.” They did not understand. Washington has no mercy.
Fujimori of course caved in to the International Monetary Fund's demands. What followed was the most deadly economic “reform” in Latin American history. From one day to the next, the price of fuel increased by 31 times (2,968 per cent) and the price of bread increased more than twelve times (1,150 per cent).
People could no longer afford to boil water. A cholera epidemic broke out.
The social consequences were devastating. An agricultural worker in August 1990 was paid $7.50 a month (US). That was enough to buy two hamburgers and a drink at McDonalds. Consumer prices in Lima were higher than New York.
Real earnings dropped by 60 per cent. By mid-1991 the standard of living had declined by 85 per cent.
And this was the just beginning of ten years of deadly reforms under Fujimori.
And remember, Peru didn't really do anything. Just resisted a few International Monetary Fund Measures. But Yugoslavia? Yugoslavia has been driving the German Establishment (and now the Americans) crazy for 100 years or more. Washington and Berlin would like nothing more than to make Yugoslavia an example of total enslavement, to show people what would happen to them if they were to resist.
Haven't the U.S. and Germany made this perfectly clear in Kosovo? A gangster-fascist regime has been installed. And Western leaders are fully aware of the horror they have wrought in Kosovo. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan received a special report about this. The report was discussed by the British newspaper, the Observer:
Murder, torture and extortion: these are the extraordinary charges made against the UN's own Kosovo Protection Corps in a confidential United Nations report written for Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The KPC stands accused in the document, drawn up on 29 February, of 'criminal activities—killings, ill-treatment/torture, illegal policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political neutrality and hate-speech'.
Quoted in “How Will You Plead at your Trial, Mr. Annan?” at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/howwill.htm
What would Washington do if it's G-17 employees got hold of Yugoslavia? They would institute the most extreme economic “reforms” to devastate the country.
Prices would go sky high; farmers would lose their land; businesses would be bought up and closed down. In Hungary they privatized the only light bulb factory and shut it down so that now everybody has to buy bulbs from the US company, General Electric. In Yugoslavia they would take away the lamps. People would be reduced to starvation.
This kind of suffering produces ethnic tension. Washington would whip this up by sending in their UCK (KLA) fascist terrorists. Why does Washington keep the UCK in power in Kosovo? Because they want to use them again. For what? They are incapable of fighting a real army. But they are capable of terrorizing civilians.
A Washington-controlled government would bring in NATO troops to “help keep order.” The troops would never leave. The hunt for imaginary war criminals would go on, a thousand times worse than it is in the Bosnian Serb Republic. Croatians, Bosnian Muslims and ethnic Albanians who fled to Serbia to escape fascist persecution would be put on the list of phony war criminals. All loyal Yugoslavs would have to pay for their (imaginary) crimes so that “healing can begin.”
Every effort would be made to humiliate the people, to break their spirit, and to eliminate potential leaders of resistance.
Do you know what the United States did a few years ago to Vietnam? When the Vietnam War ended, the US government ordered an embargo which did Vietnam a lot of harm, economically. A few years ago, Washington agreed to lift the embargo. In exchange, Vietnam had to agree to pay the debts of the former South Vietnamese government, a puppet government controlled by Washington. Most of its debt came from borrowing money (from the US) to buy weapons (from the US) to kill its own people. And now Vietnam is being forced to pay this “debt” to Washington, after Washington had invaded Vietnam and was driven out, leaving two million Vietnamese dead.
The “democratic” opposition says that if they can just get into power everything will be normal. Washington would treat the Yugoslavs right. Sure they would. Just the way they treated the American Indians.
Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of , Ottawa, author Globalization of Poverty, Third World of The Network, Penang, Zed Books, London, 1997. and Jared Israel , editor,
www.tenc.net (Emperor's Clothes)
The Global Reflexion Foundation contributes, according to her ability, to the distribution of information on international issues that in the media does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way.
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