Economic Hit Men

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Tue May 17 19:42:21 2005

Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 22:42:21 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Buzzanco/ Taylor controversy

I happen to run across the following Andy Goodman's interview of John Perkins, author of "Confession of an Economic Hit Man." This is an excerpt:

Our next guest says he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries in Latin America and around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then taking over their economies. From 1971 to 1981 John Perkins worked for the international consulting firm, Chas Main. He described himself an "economic hitman." He has written a memoir called Confessions of an Economic Hitman. When he joined us in our firehouse studio, I asked him to begin with how he came to be recruited first by the National Security Agency, far larger than the C.I.A., and then this so-called international consulting firm of Chas T. Main.

.....

AMY GOODMAN: Now, already people are going to be wondering, What is he talking about, economic hit man? Explain.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, really, over the past 30 to 40 years, we economic hit men have created the largest global empire in the history of the world. And we do this, typically -- well, there are many ways to do it, but a typical one is that we identify a third-world country that has resources, which we covet. And often these days that's oil, or might be the canal in the case of Panama. In any case, we go to that third-world country and we arrange a huge loan from the international lending community; usually the World Bank leads that process. So, let's say we give this third-world country a loan of $1 billion. One of the conditions of that loan is that the majority of it, roughly 90%, comes back to the United States to one of our big corporations, the ones we've all heard of recently, the Bechtels, the Halliburtons. And those corporations build in this third-world country large power plants, highways, ports, or industrial parks -- big infrastructure projects that basically serve the very rich in those countries. The poor people in those countries and the middle class suffer; they don't benefit from these loans, they don't benefit from the projects. In fact, often their social services have to be severely curtailed in the process of paying off the debt. Now what also happens is that this third-world country then is saddled with a huge debt that it can't possibly repay. For example, today, Ecuador. Ecuador's foreign debt, as a result of the economic hit man, is equal to roughly 50% of its national budget. It cannot possibly repay this debt, as is the case with so many third-world countries. So, now we go back to those countries and say, look, you borrowed all this money from us, and you owe us this money, you can't repay your debts, so give our oil companies your oil at very cheap costs. And in the case of many of these countries, Ecuador is a good example here, that means destroying their rain forests and destroying their indigenous cultures. That's what we're doing today around the world, and we've been doing it -- it began shortly after the end of World War II.

It has been building up over time until today where it's really reached mammoth proportions where we control most of the resources of the world. The full interview http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/17/1420232. I am deeply troubled by this. How should we read this? And since this falls within the period when the Vietnam war was going on, was there, or should there be, any connection. ? Any comment is welcome.

Nguyen Ba Chung

From DNguyen@KQED.org Tue May 17 21:55:08 2005

Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 21:53:31 -0700

From: Nguyen Qui Duc <DNguyen@KQED.org>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: [Vsg] Buzzanco/ Taylor controversy

However likely or unlikely the story, programs such as Amy Goodman's tend not to present varying viewpoints, ask for little proof, why these people end up revealing their stories, or where to go for more information, etc. Here is "a doubting voice".

From Publishers Weekly

Perkins spent the 1970s working as an economic planner for an international consulting firm, a job that took him to exotic locales like Indonesia and Panama, helping wealthy corporations exploit developing nations as, he claims, a not entirely unwitting front for the National Security Agency. He says he was trained early in his career by a glamorous older woman as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony. He also says he has wanted to tell his story for the last two decades, but his shadowy masters have either bought him off or threatened him until now. The story as presented is implausible to say the least, offering so few details that Perkins often seems paranoid, and the simplistic political analysis doesnâ~@~Yt enhance his credibility. Despite the claim that his work left him wracked with guilt, the artless prose is emotionally flat and generally comes across as a personal crisis of conscience blown up to monstrous proportions, casting Perkins as a victim not only of his own neuroses over class and money but of dark forces beyond his control. His claim to have assisted the House of Saud in strengthening its ties to American power brokers may be timely enough to attract some attention, but the yarn he spins is ultimately unconvincing, except perhaps to conspiracy buffs.

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Wed May 18 20:03:07 2005

Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 23:03:13 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Buzzanco/ Taylor controversy

Thank you, Qui Duc, for the response. Indeed, that is a negative review. I spent a couple hours surfing the net, found so much information for a book just coming out in Nov 2004 that I had to stop. The great majority of reviews are positive, with only a few, very few, negative, but most surprisingly there isn't one challenging any fact that JP presents, at least, not that I could find.

Here are some excepts:

"Imagine the conceptual love child of James Bond and Milton Friedman."

"This riveting look at a world of intrigue reads like a spy novel. Perkins vividly recounts his work throughout the world, from Saudi Arabia to Panama to Ecuador, and introduces such characters as Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, who became a personal friend. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries."

â~@~TLibrary Journal A â~@~\gripping tell-all book . . . . Perkins reveals how the U.S. machine works behind closed doors and how America has exploited others for its own needsâ~@~] â~@~TRocky Mountain News

"As a senior economist in several development agencies and a lead economist at the World Bank over the past decade, I find John Perkins's book provocative and disturbing. With honesty, remorse and compassion, Perkins describes the motivation of 'economic hit men' (EHM) and the corporations they serve as being far more prevalent than many of us would like to believe. Moreover, Perkins makes a good case that most of us help further the agenda of EHM and such corporations by unknowingly and unwittingly doing their bidding, failing to appreciate the sinister architecture behind the global empire. The book succeeds as a wake up call because the reader cannot help but assess his or her role on a personal level, thus providing an impetus for change." --R. Paul Shaw, Formerly Lead Economist, Currently Program Adviser, Human Development Group, World Bank Institute "John Perkins speaks for many of us-citizens in our country, citizens of the world-who are trapped in our own personal and national histories, who struggle with temptation, power and ultimately our own souls. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is his story, one that through necessity and courage offers us a way back, beyond salvation, to human justice." --Gary Margolis Ph.D., Director, Center for Counseling and Human Relations, Associate Professor of English, Middlebury College and author of Fire in the Orchard and Falling Awake A bombshell. One of those rare instances in which someone deeply entrenched in our government/corporate imperialist structure has come forward to reveal in unequivocal terms its inner workings. A work of great insight and moral courage.â~@~] - John E. Mack, Harvard professor and Pulitzer prize-winning author.

Some interesting tidbits:

- "The book, which was published in November 2004, has found to the surprise and dismay of some, a place in The New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in seven out of 10 weeks between the weeks ending January 8 and March 12."

- "Despite the fact that the mainstream press hasn't covered this book, the response has been overwhelming. It went to No. 1 on Amazon its first official week in publication. It's now in its fourth week of publication, and it's in its third printing, which I've been told is without precedent in the publishing world, especially for a book that hasn't received mainstream press coverage." Currently it's in its 8th printing.

- Perkins was invited to lecture at appreciative audience at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. There Walden Bello placed Confessions in the tradition of the Pentagon Papers and of ex-agent Philip Agee's anti-CIA memoir. Perhaps one of the most informative review I came across is by C.P. Chandrasekhar on Frontline, a national magazine of the HINDU newspaper (India). (http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20050422002612300.htm&date=fl2208/&prd=fline& ).

I have no investment in JP or his book. I just happen to come across it and thought it'd have some value to to start with an interesting perspective. I thought there wouldn't be much controversy because the facts the JP presents are nothing new, only that they come from an insider, with a perspective that could tie everything together and make things so easy to understand. I have no investment in JP or his book

To quote Chandrasekhar:

"At one level, this is a ground that has been covered many times before. The idea that aid, much of which is debt, is tied to contracts for consultants and corporations from aid-giving countries and that aid-spending has little by way of linkage effects in the home country has been argued for long. That the indebtedness such aid dependence generates undermines sovereignty and affects the foreign policy and the international relationships of the countries concerned has been documented many times. And the fact that the involvement of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as economic policemen in poor and not-so-poor developing countries makes even dependence on non-aid flows a means of entrapping them in an unequal and damaging global compact is now well established even if ignored in mainstream circles." So, on the next post I will dispense with JP and his books, and use informations that are already available to make the point. And believe me, it has a lot to do with the arguments between Taylor/Buzzanco, not something, I hope, tangential. As I am kind of in the middle some rush work right now, pardon me if I do not respond as promptly as I should.

Nguyen Ba Chung

From david.biggs@ucr.edu Wed May 18 08:50:51 2005

Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 08:50:28 -0700

From: David A Biggs <david.biggs@ucr.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] Economic hit men

Dear Bác Chung and List-

I have been looking at engineering communities in Vietnam and mainland SE Asia as well as development policies, and I have a few limited comments to make regarding Vietnam and this "economic hit man" idea:

First, I have found there are a lot of continuities from old colonial public works engineers to French-trained Vietnamese public works engineers in the 1930's to post-WWII American and other foreign engineers working for some of these huge firms like RMK-BRJ or Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) (known to war protesters as "kill, burn and loot"). These individuals and firms throughout the war could be said to form a kind of elite community where there was extensive exchange of ideas between them, carryover "advisors" from old regimes, and an intense American emphasis on "engineered solutions" to such strategies as "pacification". In an ARPA report describing advanced development of the Plain of Reeds in 1968, one hired ecologist made what I think was a very prescient point about this kind of big project mentality: while everyone was at odds ideologically, nobody really questioned the ecological or ethical principles of building highways, hydro dams (witness Hoa Binh), or other large projects in developing countries--certainly not in the early 1970's (perhaps not even today). I believe that the engineering community at work in Vietnam and SE Asia deserves more critical attention not just as technicians but as agents operating in a polarized political climate; but suggesting that engineers act politically does not mean they are all acting in concert with US objectives - far from it.

Second, I don't think I would give so much credit to the NSC or CIA for single-handedly indebting the South to the United States. People such as Eugene Black who pushed for large-scale development of dams on the Mekong mainstream in the early 1960's had by the late 1960's opted for a kind of Vietnamization policy in regional development (regionalization), pushing Japan to fund more of the projects and setting up the ADB as a regional lending bank. The US Congress by 1972 saw large dam projects like the proposed Pa Mong Dam as giant monoliths that ultimately would not achieve strategic or humanitarian objectives for the region. I would argue that much of the commitment of loans, engineers, and American money to developing projects in Vietnam and the region was not a premeditated attempt to indebt nations to the US but a direct response to competing Soviet offers of technical aid as well as a means of supporting our own large American conglomerates with fat contracts overseas.

Thirdly, while Bretton Woods certainly can be viewed as an instrument for achieving "US hegemony" after WWII, the unprecedented one-way expenditures of the US in Vietnam and SE Asia on military and public works projects (not loans) may be largely responsible for the devaluation of the dollar in the late 1960's and ultimately the collapse of the Bretton Woods currency system in 1971-1972 when Nixon unilaterally "floated" the dollar and abolished direct conversions to gold. While some "economic hit men" may be committed to pushing through large loan programs funded by US banks and US currency, I don't think this equates to the US "owning" local resources. Maybe some of the economists can reply better to this problem. In my naïve opinion, I would say that the Asian Crisis in 1998, the bankruptcies in Argentina and Mexico, and the collapse of several large international banks in the late 1990's threaten US economic security more than they help the US achieve hegemony in the region.

David

David A Biggs

1212 HMNSS Building - History

University of California - Riverside

Riverside CA 92521

(951) 827-1877

dbiggs@ucr.edu

From: "Shawn McHale" <mchale@gwu.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 10:08 AM

Subject: [Vsg] Goodman/ Perkins as economic hit man/ Vietnamese signals intelligence

Dear list,

The story about Perkins being an "economic hit man" linked to the National Security Agency strikes me as implausible. NSA historically focused on signals intelligence -- i.e. intercepting communications, decrypting it, translating it, etc. Other will know much more about it than I. But the idea that Perkins was dabbling for NSA in economic policy seems dubious, to say the least.

If you want to find out more about the NSA, the formerly supersecret agency now has a public relations office (!!!) and, I was amused to see, a special page on its website for kids. (So does the CIA website). Why the US government wastes money on CIA and NSA pages for kids is beyond me. . . . I'd prefer to see those agencies spend money on *declassifing* materials.

The only real connection here to Vietnam in this story is that of course the NSA wazs involved in signals intelligence in Vietnam. In fact, a linguist at the NSA translated a Vietnamese history of signals intelligence in Vietnam during the war which you can order for free from the NSA's Public Affairs Office (yes, shocking to say, the formerly tight-lipped NSA has such an office).

Shawn McHale

Associate Professor of History and International Affairs

Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies

George Washington University

Washington, DC 20052 USA

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Mon May 23 08:43:55 2005

Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 11:34:29 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] Goodman/ Perkins as economic hit man/ Vietnamese signals intelligence

Thank you Shawn for your response.

Iâ~@~Yd agree that â~@~\NSA historically focused on signals intelligenceâ~@~] and that â~@~\the NSA was involved in signals intelligence in Vietnam.â~@~] Although, presently, that might have gotten much further, considering the ongoing development of closer security cooperation between the two countries.

Based on past history, however, I could not be so sanguine. We remember the Pentagon papers, with all of their roadways, byways, and superhighways of deceptions and cover-ups. We remember that the National Security Council, by statues, is a policy-making body, not an operation center, and yet Oliver North, Poindexter, etc. turned it into a secret conduit for the Iran Contra.

And recently, the secret British memo published by the Sunday Times of London on May 1st has left no doubt that a whole host of top officials in Washington, including Mr. George Tenet, have repeatedly â~@~\misspoken,â~@~] to say the least. It is a very strange world we are living in. I wonder what Tom Paine and Mark Twain would have said.

[Cf. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html]

That, of course, does not mean that therefore everything any Dick, Tom and Harry make up should be believed. The point, I think, is that one can â~@~Xt simply rely on such available legally defined information to dismiss them. Especially when there are ample documented evidences behind their story. But thatâ~@~Ys a subject for another post.

The last point, perhaps a trivial one, is that if J Perkins intends to deceive, he could certainly pick any cover he chooses. In his book, as Chandrasekhar mentions in his review, JP actually refers to two that were doing the recruiting. The fact that he picks the less believable one actually argues in his favor.

Nguyen Ba Chung

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Wed May 25 06:45:44 2005

Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 09:44:45 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: [Vsg] economic hit men

Dear David:

I would agree with a lot of your analysis. The JP interview covers a lot of ground, there are many ways to read the points he raises, and yours is certainly one way of doing it.

The issues, for my arguments at least, would become clearer in my follow-up post to Qui Duc~Rs response. Since I do not want to jump ahead of myself, let me just make a few points.

J Perkins~R account focuses on how to best serve the transnational corporations in creating extremely profitable relationships with the wealthy elites of third world country, borrowing money in their country~Rs name and keeping the lion~Rs share of the profit for themselves. Both the wealthy elites of that country and the corporations enrich themselves; only the majority of the people there, poor and destitute, suffer.

The difference in this case is that the Vietnam war is not the enterprise of a corporation, but of a state. A state~Rs enterprise does not have quite the same objective of immediate profits like a corporation. It does not have to report the balance sheet every quarter, its loss is fully covered by the national budget as expenses for national security. It has other criteria for successes. Such as credibility, geopolitics~R real estate, sphere of influence, the maintenance of the whole client state system, etc. And, of course, the ability to arrange further profitable projects for its corporations.

There are intimate relations between the two, as JP points out: the state helps corporation win favorable contracts, while the corporation funnels part of its profits back to support the power structure, and provides agency of local influence for the state when local influence needs to be applied. One cannot exist without the other.

One of the first individuals to reveal this hidden relationship as an insider was a very popular soldier in the 1930s ~V Marine Major General Smedley Butler. Twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, immensely beloved by his troop, and always very blunt speaking, he told a story that highlighted Mussolini~Rs callousness. As the country leadership was greatly enamored of Mussolini at the time (fascism was very corporation friendly), he was ordered either to issue an apology to Mussolini or to face court martial. He resigned from the army instead, and became even more popular. His name is still being memorialized by the Marines today ~V Camp Butler in Okinawa. Summing up his long and illustrious career, he wrote:

"I spent 33 years...being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street."

But the state does not always succeed. Vietnam is an example of how things could go awry despite all the hopeful expectations in the beginning. And when things do not go as planned, of course, as you analysis amply shows, things hardly look good.

There~Rs another aspect to this hidden relationship: regardless whether the state succeeds or not, the corporations always win. RMK-BRJ or Kellogg, Brown and Root~Rs balance sheets, as are those of Halliburton, Bechtel, etc. had never been better. ~SWar is a racket,~T General Butler~Rs little book on WW I, would say.

Look at the recent case of Iraq. Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz believed that there would be no need for US fund: once Iraq oil spouts start flowing, there would be enough black gold to cover the cost of the war and the reconstruction. Secretary Rumsfeld didn~Rt think there was any need for a military force of a touch more than a hundred thousand. It would be a cakewalk. The natives would welcome us with flowers.

With hindsight, just as in the case of Vietnam, one might argue, as your post implies, that the enterprise does not offer any advantage at all. As the cost of the war in Iraq now approaches 200 billion dollars and there is no end in sight, one might even say that the Iraq war and all its attending consequences ~Sthreaten US economic security more than they help the US achieve hegemony in the region.~T Was the enterprise, therefore, done purely out of altruism, for the sake of nobility and justice ? Rarely could we easily answer questions of this kind but in this case, we have the indisputable British Rycroft memo to settle the issue [Cf. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html].

One of your statements catches my attention ~V ~Sbut suggesting that engineers act politically does not mean they are all acting in concert with US objectives - far from it.~T

Let~Rs review an earlier comment:

Having been working for years as a top economist for the World Bank, R. Paul Shaw must be a very knowledgeable man, a very bright fellow. And yet he didn~Rt quite grasp the picture until he read J Perkins. He apparently acted in concert with the big picture without even knowing it. Clearly, it isn~Rt easy to come to such a conclusion.

Again, please say hi to HA.

Nguyen Ba Chung

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Mon May 30 12:53:21 2005

Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 15:52:56 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] economic hit men/ Talawas

It's interesting to note that the discussion we are having here re: the meaning of the VN war is also a major topic on Talawas (http://www.talawas.de/index1.html ). It started out with an article by Le Xuan Khoa published on the BBC, which then drew a response from a piece on the Nhan Dan daily in Hanoi and a number of essays by both overseas and homeland Vietnamese. The most recent one is by Lu Phuong, a well known dissident intellectual in Vietnam. What's most amazing about this LP piece is that not only it appears to attempt to explain many different points of view and their origins, it also invokes references from writings by overseas Vietnamese, the Pentagon papers, Gabriel Koklko, John Paul II, Frederick Watkins, etc.

It'd be great if someone with some free time could summarize some of the major arguments, making us, perhaps, a little less "America-centric."

Actually a reader translated one of my posts in VSG during the "American war/Vietnam war" discussion and sent it to Talawas. I was asked by Talwas to contribute a piece directly myself. Due to my current situation, I regret that I could not.

As for some of the current news on the Worldbank and the IMF, there are two interesting pieces:

The first one is by InterPress Service, highlighting the controversy re: a farewell party for the Director attended by some of the big-name NGOs. The protest is expressed by Doug Hellinger of the Washington-based advocacy group:

'The dangerous message to the World Bank's next very controversial president, Paul Wolfowitz, is clear: give civil society access to your decision-makers without making consequential policy changes, embellish your initiatives with terms such as 'poverty reduction', 'good governance', and 'democracy', and you will earn congratulations from civil society groups for imposing an agenda that continues to harm vulnerable people while enriching the privileged." (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0527-04.htm)

The second piece is a current Op-Ed in the Los Angles Time which says how since the start of the "Washington consensus", the wealthy elites have become richer, while the poor in these countries have become poorer and poorer.

(http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-garson30may30.story)

For an example of the above, please view the case of Zambia. It started out in the early 1970s, with total external debt $814 million... By the end of the 1980s, under WB/IMF "structural adjustment" regime, its external debt has ballooned to $6,916 million.

(http://www.africafocus.org/docs04/zam0406.php)

From Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu Thu Jun 2 06:48:54 2005

Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:39:32 -0400

From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>

Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] economic hit men/ Talawas

Another remarkable piece of news that comes from a meeting of 350-plus representatives of civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Montreal re: the international economic order. I don't want to beat this issue to death but it appears to me that this kind of news seems to be understood everywhere in the world except in the US, or at least except by a sizable number of people in the U.S.. Freedom is on the march, democracy is expanding everywhere... Am I missing something ? And this is not new. The structure was put in place sixty years ago, after the end of WW II and at the beginning of the First Indochina war. Could someone explain to me this discrepancy ? Africa is the poorest continent in the word, it could hardly feed its own people who are lucky to earn a dollar a day to feed their family. >From these bottom-of-the-barrel economies, they have to cough up 15 billion dollars a year to the WB/IMF and transnational corporations just to pay off the interests on their debt.

Some interesting quotes:

"The United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO) were criticized as lacking transparency and accountability and practicing political elitism and decision-making dictated by the rich and powerful."

"Rajesh Tandon, chair of the board of the Montreal International Forum (also known by its French initials, FIM), singled out the United States, France, and Britain -- three veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- for what he termed their political double standards. ''Those who pretend to be champions of democracy at the national level are the practicing enemies of democracy at the global level,'' Tandon told IPS." He urged civil society groups in the three countries to exert pressure on their governments to bring their actions in line with their stated principles."

"Kumi Naidoo of South Africa-based Civicus told NGO delegates that one of the first political exercises is to educate world leaders who extol the virtues of democracy in their own countries. ''But they advocate the worst policy of global governance in multilateral institutions outside their home countries,'' he added. "

Or may be I am wrong. May be I am delusional. May be I just misspeak ?

Full article from InrterPress Service:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0601-02.htm

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