Securing Our Water's Future

Victoria has just experienced the worst year of drought and lowest stream flows in our State's history.

In 2004 we put in place a long-term plan for water - Our Water Our Future. As a result we have implemented the most successful water saving campaign in Australia.

Industry and business are being made to save water and recycling has increased from two per cent of Melbourne's wastewater in 1999 to 14 per cent today.

Victorians have responded magnificently. Farmers have become more water efficient. Businesses and households have jointly reduced their water use by 22 per cent in Melbourne and by similar amounts in regional centres.

The ongoing need to save water will continue. However saving water isn't enough. We need to increase our water supplies.

As part of our plan, we've been working on a long-term solution. $4.9 billion will be spent in major water infrastructure projects to provide the biggest boost to Victoria's water supplies in 25 years.

Climate change and drought are big challenges. Having a secure water supply will enable Victoria's economy and population to continue to grow.

John Brumby
Premier

Tim Holding
Minister for Water

Memimpin dengan Kesederhanaan

Sa’ad bin Al-Jamhi pernah diprotes rakyatnya karena selalu terlambat masuk kantor. Itu, karena ia tak memiliki pembantu dan harus membantu istrinya memasak.

Hidayatullah.com--Sesaat setelah Rasulullah Shalallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam wafat, kaum Muslimin segera mencari pengganti untuk melanjutkan kepemimpinan Islam. Ketika itu Abu Bakar Radhiallahu ‘anhu memegang tangan Umar bin Khaththab Ra dan Abu Ubaidah bin Jarrah Ra sambil mengatakan kepada khalayak, “Salah satu dari kedua orang ini adalah yang paling tepat menjadi khalifah. Umar yang dikatakan oleh Rasulullah sebagai orang yang dengannya Allah memuliakan Islam dan Abu Ubaidah yang dikatakan Rasulullah sebagai kepercayaan ummat ini.”

Tangan Umar gemetar mendengar kata-kata Abu Bakar itu, seakan ia kejatuhan bara yang menyala. Abu Ubaidah menutup mukanya dan menangis dengan rasa malu yang sangat. Umar bin Khaththab lalu berteriak, “Demi Allah, aku lebih suka dibawa ke depan lalu leherku ditebas walau tanpa dosa, daripada diangkat menjadi pemimpin suatu kaum dimana terdapat Abu Bakar.”

Pernyataan Umar ini membuat Abu Bakar terdiam, karena tidak mengharapkan dirinya yang ditunjuk menjadi khalifah. Dia menyadari dirinya sangat lemah dalam mengendalikan pemerintahan. Tidak setegas Umar, dan tidak sebijak Abu Ubaidah.

Tapi akhirnya pikiran dan perasaan semua orang terarah kepada Abu Bakar. Karena dialah sesungguhnya yang paling dekat ditinjau dari berbagai aspek untuk menduduki jabatan khalifah yang teramat berat ini.

Seabrek alasan dapat dikemukakan untuk menunjuk Abu Bakar Ash-Shiddiq. Dialah yang dianggap paling dekat dengan Rasulullah dan paling kuat imannya sesuai pernyataan Nabi, “Kalau iman seluruh ummat Islam ditimbang dengan iman Abu Bakar, maka lebih berat iman Abu Bakar.”

Maka terangkatlah Abu Bakar sebagai khalifah pengganti Nabi Saw. Saat pertama kali Abu Bakar menginjakkan kaki di mimbar Rasulullah, ia hanya sampai pada anak tangga kedua dan duduk di situ tanpa berani melanjutkan ke anak tangga berikutnya, sambil berpidato, “Wahai sekalian manusia. Sesungguhnya aku diangkat menjadi pemimpin kalian, tapi aku bukanlah orang yang terbaik di antara kalian. Jika aku berbuat baik maka bantulah aku. Dan jika aku berbuat kesalahan maka luruskanlah aku. Ketahuilah, sesungguhnya orang yang lemah di antara kalian adalah orang yang kuat di sisiku, hingga aku berikan hak kepadanya. Taatlah kepadaku selama aku taat kepada Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Maka jika aku durhaka, janganlah kalian taat kepadaku.”

Sang khalifah berusaha menjaga wibawa kepemimpinan. Tapi dalam kedudukannya sebagai seorang pemimpin dia berusaha meyakinkan orang yang di bawah kepemimpinannya bahwa jabatan adalah amanah yang menuntut tanggung jawab, bukan penguasaan. Penguasa adalah satu orang di antara ummat, bukan ummat dalam satu orang. Abu Bakar tidak menginginkan karena jabatan, dia jadi jauh dengan ummat. Sebaliknya, dia ingin semakin dekat dengan mereka. Terhadap ketentuan Nabi dia menyatakan, “Saya lebih rela diterkam serigala daripada merubahnya.”

Demikianlah gambaran ketegangan yang terjadi pada waktu pemilihan jabatan. Semua orang menolak jabatan, padahal kapasitas para sahabat sangat memadai untuk memegang kekuasaan.

***

Ketika Abu Bakar wafat, Umar bin Khaththab disepakati tampil sebagai pengganti. Umar yang memegang amanah selama dua pelita (10 tahun) 6 bulan dan 4 hari berhasil menggurat sejarah yang merubah peta dunia.

Lelaki perkasa yang digambarkan kekuatannya saat menentang Islam di zaman jahiliyah sama dengan kekuatan seluruh kaum Quraisy, telah tampil dengan perkasa pula di zaman Islam membela kebenaran, membayar dosa-dosa jahiliyahnya.

Dia larutkan dalam pengabdian mewujudkan pemerintah yang bersih dan bertanggung jawab. Kontrolnya berjalan efektif, sehingga seluruh rakyatnya tidak ada yang luput dari perhatiannya.

Ketika penduduk pinggiran kota kena paceklik, Umar sendiri yang memikul gandum di pundaknya, lalu mengantarkan ke rakyatnya yang tengah dilanda kelaparan. Lalu penduduk itu segera dipindahkan ke kota untuk mempermudah pemantauannya.

Suatu malam di kota Madinah kedatangan kafilah yang membawa barang dagangan. Diajaknya Abdurrahman bin Auf menemani penjaga kafilah itu semalam suntuk. Tapi tidak jauh dari tempat kafilah itu ada bayi yang selalu menangis, tidak mau diam. Umar berulangkali menasihati bahkan memarahi ibunya karena tidak dapat mendiamkan anaknya.

Ibu sang anak itu lalu berkomentar bahwa, “Inilah kesalahan Umar karena hanya anak yang tidak menyusui yang diberi tunjangan, sehingga anak yang usianya baru beberapa bulan ini terpaksa saya sapih.” Umar sangat terpukul mendengar kata-kata ibu itu.

Ketika menjadi imam shalat Subuh, bacaan ayatnya tidak jelas karena diiringi tangis. Usai shalat langsung diumumkan bahwa seluruh anak kecil mendapat tunjangan dari baitul mal, termasuk yang masih menyusu.

Tegas dan Sederhana

Prinsip ketegasan dan kesederhanaan dipegang kuat oleh Umar. Para gubernur yang bertugas di daerah cukup kewalahan dengan sikap itu. Pernah Amru bin Ash, gubernur yang sangat berjasa menaklukkan Mesir, diberi hukuman cambuk karena seorang rakyat Mesir melapor bahwa dirinya pernah dipukul sang Gubernur. Orang yang melapor itu sendiri yang disuruh memukulnya.

Pernah juga Abdulah bin Qathin, seorang gubernur yang bertugas di Hamash, dilucuti pakaiannya lalu disuruh menggantinya dengan baju gembala, kemudian disuruh menggembala domba beberapa saat. Sebelumnya ada yang diperintahkan membakar pintu rumahnya, karena salah seorang rakyatnya bercerita setelah ditanya oleh Umar tentang keadaan gubernurnya. Dia menjawab, “Cukup bagus, hanya sayangnya karena dia mendirikan rumah mewah.”

Kemudian gubernur itu disuruh memasang kembali bajunya dan dipesan, “Kembalilah ke tempat tugasmu tapi jangan berbuat demikian lagi. Saya tidak pernah memerintahkan engkau membangun rumah besar,” tegas Umar.

Sebaliknya, terhadap gubernurnya yang sederhana, Umar sangat sayang. Seperti yang dilakukannya terhadap Sa’ad bin Al-Jamhi yang diprotes rakyatnya karena selalu terlambat membuka kantornya, tidak melayani rakyatnya di malam hari dan tidak membuka kantor sehari dalam seminggu. Itu dilakukan karena Sa’ad tidak memiliki pembantu sehingga dia membantu istrinya membuatkan adonan roti. Nanti setelah adonan itu mengembang, barulah berangkat ke kantor.

Sa’ad tidak melayani rakyatnya di malam hari karena waktu itu digunakan untuk bermunajat dan memohon ampunan kepada Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala. Dan sengaja tidak membuka kantor sehari dalam seminggu kecuali di sore hari karena ia harus mencuci pakaian dinas dan menunggu hingga kering.

Kalau di zaman sekarang, model kepemimpinan seperti ini mungkin dianggap tidak efektif. Orang menyebutnya manajemen tukang sate, yakni harus mengiris daging sendiri, menusuk sate, dan membakarnya sendiri.

Tentu letak perbedaannya ada pada pola pikir dan cara pandang. Para sahabat Nabi sangat takut terhadap pertanggungjawaban di akhirat. Sekecil apapun persoalan ummat menjadi perhatiannya.

Berbeda dengan kebanyakan kepemimpinan saat ini dengan prinsip yang penting ada pembagian tugas, lalu pandai membuat laporan. Tidak peduli laporan itu fiktif atau bukan. Ditambah dengan lemahnya kontrol dan pemantauan, maka dimana-mana terjadi penyelewengan.

Mantan Wakil Presiden Adam Malik pernah bertutur, “Semua bisa diatur.” Artinya di depan umum selalu berbicara tentang supremasi hukum, namun dalam kenyataannya berpura-pura.

Ini akibat tidak takut kepada Allah. Baginya bukan siksaan di akhirat yang mengerikan , tapi hanya risiko dunia.

Orang seperti ini terkadang menantang-nantang akhirat segala. Inilah yang dimaksudkan ayat Allah dalam surat Az-Zumar ayat 45: “Dan apabila nama Allah yang disebut, kesallah orang-orang yang tidak percaya terhadap keberadaan akhirat. Tetapi apabila nama sembahan-sembahan selain Allah yang disebut, mereka tiba-tiba merasa gembira.”

Sungguh dapat kita bayangkan seperti apa nasib negeri kita kalau orang-orang yang duduk di puncak kekusaan memiliki orientasi berpikir seperti itu. Sangat mengerikan.

Sungguh tidak keliru bila ummat di zaman kini kembali berkaca kepada kesederhanaan sahabat. Alangkah mulianya pribadi Umar bin Khaththab yang membuat peraturan untuk para gubernurnya:

1. Jangan memiliki kendaraan istimewa

2. Jangan memakai pakaian tipis (halus dan mahal harganya)

3. Jangan makan-makan yang enak-enak

4. Jangan menutup rumahmu bila orang memerlukanmu

Semua itu dimaksudkan agar para gubernur dapat merasakan apa yang dirasakan oleh yang dipimpinnya.

Semoga pemimpin di negeri ini dapat merenungi beratnya tanggung jawab memegang amanah rakyat. Bila tidak, bisa jadi akan diadili oleh mahkamah sejarah. Lebih mengerikan lagi tuntutan tanpa pembela di mahkamah akhirat nanti.* [Manshur Salbu. Diambil dari Rubrik “Hikmah” di Majalah Hidayatullah/ www.hidayatullah.com]

Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries

by Jones, Garth N

Schneider, Ben Ross and Blanca Heredia (eds.) Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries. Miami, FL: North-South Press at University of Miami, 2003. 319 pp.

Confounding! As an organizational theorist with a half-century interest in development at home and abroad, this was my first reading of the book under review.

he book was narrowly conceived and disregarded a rich scholarship on change and development. A crude question arose in my confoundings: Where do these guys come from? Turning to the brief bio-sketches, there seem to be six U.S. Americans and seven Latin Americans. Several of the Latin Americans held advanced degrees from reputable U.S. universities. Seven had graduate degrees in political science/politics, three in economics, one in sociology, one in public administration and one in architecture. By name 1 counted two women, Blanca Heredia, co-editor from Mexico, and Barbara Nunberg, contributor, from the USA. I gained the impression that the editors and their contributors were aggressive young scholars with international experience. The subject matter of the book concerned politics of administrative reform in selected Latin American countries with two excursions into Thailand and Hungary. The intellectual aim, as indicated in the title, was reinventing the leviathan. Here I was confounded by inorganic and organic considerations. For me reinventing seems mechanistic, repairing a machine, and leviathan, healing a big fish. The editors obviously drew upon John Locke for this title, but little Lockean philosophy appeared.

In seeking clarity I came to the realization that these thirteen writers were Harry Potter contemporaries. They were profoundly influenced by the goings-on in the Wizard Kingdom of 1990's Washington, D.C. Their principle school of wizardry was the Bank of Reconstruction and Development, known as the World Bank, which had decided that governmental reform was basic to constructive national growth and development. The magical potion for reform would be application of neo-liberal economics.

The new scripture of wizardry was the work by journalist David Osborne and city manager Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government (1992). Its subtitle is "How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public sector from Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon." The subtitle of a companion work, Banishing Bureaucracy ( 1997), written by David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, is even more "how to," "The Five Strategies for Reinvent ing Government." In both works entrepreneurship reigns supreme. The game of administrative reform, the task of reinvention, is about replacing bureaucratic systems (bad) with entrepreneurial systems (good).

In this game of wizardry, there is little need to define key concepts and terms such as reform, society, public, government, state, administration. A new state order is instituted by carving out and rejecting old fashioned "stuff and incorporating into the progressive entity the capacity for organizational maximization of output/performance. The result is the triumph of technocrats. Hence, nearly all of the references are of this appropriate 1990's variety. The economic notion of opportunity costs is taken seriously, making way to get the highest rates of return on investments. Authoritarian economic rationale takes precedence over the ideal of democratic governance.

Of course, bankers and financiers would embrace such a state of affairs-real corporatism, which, incidentally, characterized Indonesia's Suharto's developmentalism.

The wizardry of reinvention captured the imagination of both U.S. and foreign scholars with a lot of new jargon emerging such as new public management and new managerialism. This intellectual faddism was, indeed, pervasive. However, at the time of this writing, serious scholars are questioningn reinvention/entrepreneurial wizardry. "Entrepreneuring" can lead to endemic corruption, jeopardizing a democracy's polity, and pursuing wrong social goals. In other words, the market becomes the paramount socioeconomic evil.1

Pursuing the common good can only be accomplished by a government based upon responsible citizenship and a competent civil service. There are limits to what the market may accomplish. Markets fail. Basic care functions such as maintaining law and order and administering justice can never be privatized. A substantial measure of government regulation is necessary to ensure a healthy market; making certain, for example, that weights and measure are maintained.

Schneider and Heredia, the two editors, approached their wizardry in a straightforward manner, with no serious reservations. Leviathans are no doubt tough creatures, but they can be reinvented. Although not identified as such, the process was accelerated Darwinian evolution caused by introduced entrepreneurialism. Liberal economics is a powerful lubrication.

So goes the essence of the beginning of this book under review, as expressed in the preface and acknowledgments and the introduction in form of Chapter 1, "The Political Economy of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries." They justify their endeavor by first noting: "Administrative reform had surprisingly little to say about politics" and second "A series of recently public studies on the politics. . .of reforms (have) generated.. . plausible hypotheses . . . ." Preface and Acknowledgments, p. i. From these two notings, the editors move on to the Osborne and Goebler rationale in reinventing government. They rely heavily upon the World Bank's flagship publication, the 1997 World Development Report: The State in a Changing World, p. 1. The notion of two reform waves is utilized. The first downsized government and the second focused on "building or rebuilding institutional and administrative capacities."(p. 1) Demoralized civil service was often a consequence of the first wave.

found little utility in the models of administrative reform as advanced with three broad categories of civil service, accountability, and managerial. The two editors along with their contributors appeared ignorant of the substantial literature on planned organizational change and transformation. Those old scholars of the 198Os and even years back had a lot to say on how to activate and control administrative reform.

The middle of this book, "Empirical Studies in the Political Economy of Reform," consists of six excellent country studies where deep insights into the difficulties of administrative reform and means for success are carefully discussed. 1 would include in this middle part as well Chapter 8 "When Institutions Matter: A Comparison of the Politics of Administrative, Social security, and Tax Reforms in Brazil" by Brazilian Marcus Andre Melo. This chapter along with Chapter 4 "The 1995 Public Management Reform in Brazil: Reflections of a Reformer" by Brazilian Luis Carbos Bresser-Pereira are worth the price of this book. These two individuals wrestled first hand with what I prefer to call planned organizational change. They were not limited in thought by the constrictive paradigm of reinventing leviathan. The major lesson learned: "Competent reform requires imagination and an accurate diagnosis of the problem," (p. 97). As to obiter dictum, success is determined by asking the right questions. Institutional analysis is mandatory in "understanding policy outcomes ....," (p. 261). This analysis will yield vital information in the diagnosis of the problem from which constructive reform measures may be introduced, so write these two Brazilians.

For two or more decades Argentina has been a "basket case." In recent memory, Argentina was one of the world's best economies. It now falls into the Third World category. This country case study, the first in order presented, Chapter 2, "The Politics of Administrative Reform in Menem's Argentina: The Illusion of Isolation" written by American Jeffrey Rinne, World Bank Staffer, does not provide very much understanding of Argentina's economic downfall. However, the writer solidly treats the institutional "hardness" of Argentina's government and bureaucracy.

To sort out complexities, the Jones change/transformation continuum could be useful. Major change is ignited by disturbances/changes in the encompassing ecological system. The consequences are social and economic; the solution is political. Hence, administrative reform must always follow political reform. Each of the country cases studied more or less violated these two maxims with resultant reform initiatives out of joint. In Argentina this was particularly the change/reform situation, with the chronic problem of incrementalism killing significant administrative reform. This organizational pathology is well researched in the public administration literature, but it is scarcely addressed in this book under review.

Each of the selected case studies, except possibly Thailand, had experienced fiscal/economic crises. For help they turned to some external financial agency, usually the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund or both. Invariably, the responding agency insisted upon imposing stern economic measures, which were beyond the government's capacity to carry out. From the initial phase economic demands/reforms preceded the necessary political reforms. With this disjointedness there usually arises another crisis-in defaults on debt payment along with a profound dilemma. People and society at large are suffering. Basic needs are not being met. Nevertheless constructive progress can only take place when political reform is accomplished. Political reform is invariably a tough and nasty proposition, since basic human values are involved, the very transformation of the "soul." As my Indonesian associates stressed, reform is always a religious experience. It can best be conceived as a form of revolution, with peaceful kinds hard to achieve. Involved are winners and losers, with difficulty in finding win-win situations. As the entire twentieth century reveals, planned external nation-state building is nigh impossible, but none of this thought is contained in this book under review. With new wizardry knowledge, foreign technicians can go about the exercise of fiscal power in reinventing state/government. In the Argentina case, Jeffrey Rinne may have it right. A Peronist government may just be the way to bring about significant administrative reform.

Limits of space provide for only brief comments on the other four country studies. Barbara Nunberg, World Bank Staffer, in her Chapter 3, "The Politics of Administrative Reform in Post-Communist Hungary," gives insight into the unique situation of a country forced to accept new economic realities with the downfall of Communism. Major institutional change was necessary, conditioned by fiscal crises and driven by international pressures. Progress has been made in moving toward a merit civil service.

Chileans Manuel Antonio Garretón and Gonzalo Cáceres in their Chapter 5, "From the Disarticulation of the State to the Modernization of Public Management in Chile: Administrative Reform without a State Project," made a significant contribution to the subject of reform. Unlike the other authors, they carefully dealt with the nature of the "state apparatus." If reinventing has any value, it is to be found in this superb treatment of the complexities of society, government and state.

Mexico is a country characterized by confoundings. Unlike neighbor Canada, U.S. Americans have trouble comprehending neighbor Mexico. This fact is somewhat evidenced in Chapter 6, "Stalled Administrative Reforms of the Mexican State."coauthored by U.S. American David Arellans Gault and Mexican Juan Pablo Guerrero Amparan. With its socialist inclinations, Mexico stands in need of reinvention. The two authors address difficulties of reform within the context of Mexico's history and institutional rigidities. Reform efforts have been plagued by endemic incrementalism.

Chapter 7, "Principles of the Thai State," by U.S. American Danny Unger, is substantially different from the other five country studies. Possibly it is dated. In his conclusion Unger writes: "Unlike. . .Argentina, Brazil or Mexico, fiscal constraints in Thailand did not play a central role in. . .the piecemeal reforms...." (p. 199.) Regardless, Thailand represents an excellent study in administrative reform instituted by constitutional reform. Although the author does not mention it, the approach seems to fall very much in the U.S. tradition.2

Drawing an ending to this involved story of administrative reform across several nation states does not come easy. The two editors use the broad heading of "Comparisons and Conclusions." Comparisons can be made, but administrative reform by its very nature never ends. It waxes and wanes over time. The state is an organic entity subject to pains of death and resurrection. Transformation, in the terms of living as dictated by its ecology, is the game of survival, along with progress.

Although fraught with methodological problems, the notion of reinvention of the state is a meritorious subject. The 1990s intellectual thinking is indeed innovative and its intent commendable. Worldwide, governments are increasingly being faced with constricting finances and rising public expectations. More must be done with less.

My criticism of reinvention pertains to the paradigm which constrains thought and action. Societal growth and development must be addressed in holistic terms. Several authors of this edited work sense the necessity which is somewhat addressed in the last three chapters of this work.

As mentioned, Chapter 8 by Brazilian MeIo constitutes an excellent case study which goes beyond the paradigm limitations of reinvention. Chapter 9, "Reforms in the Administration of Justice in Latin America: An Overview of Emerging Trends," by U.S. American James E. Mahon, Jr., is somewhat out of context with this book's purpose. Nevertheless it deals with a vital aspect of development. It is encouraging that the author observes a "surge of legal and administrative renovation (which) is occurring around the world" including Latin America.(p. 251)

U.S. American Robert Kaufman in his Chapter 10 "The Comparative Politics of Administrative Reform: Some Implications for Theory and Practice," attempts to provide comparative meaning. Based upon his research and publications, his discussion falls into three broad categories: international political economy, institutional rational choice, and international sociology. The format of the two editors is somewhat pushed aside.

My primary complaint against Kaufman, as well as editors Schneider and Heredia, is their apparent strong conviction in the "wholesomeness" of the market. Culture was never seriously addressed, especially as embodied in religion.

A market is the mobilization of incentives. However, what may be an incentive in one culture is not necessarily so in another. My studies reveal that religion as the core of culture is as important, if not more so, than the "amoral" market in making for constructive progress. Reinvention constitutes instituting a new complex of values, and that is never easy. Old veterans of development will agree that innovation must be confined and controlled. Otherwise, organizations and societies and even states can implode.

In sum this book has merit, but it must be carefully read as to each peculiar circumstance of administrative reform.

NOTES

1. See "Reinventing Government: An Assessment and Critique," Public Administration Review, 60, no. 6 (November/December 2000), pp. 508-548 and Louis C. Gawthrop, "Public Entrepreneurship in the Lands of Oz and Uz," Pubic Integrity, 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999), pp. 75-86. Cf. Symposia Silver Jubilee Year Section International and Comparative Administration, Public Administration Review, Krishna K. Tummala (ed.), 58, no. 1 (January-February 1998), pp. 21-50 and 59, no. 6 (November-December 1999), pp.482-522.

2. See Ronald C. Moe, Administrative Renewal: Reorganization Commissions in the 20'h Century (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, 2003) entire work.

Garth N. Jones University of Alaska Anchorage

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

ones, Garth N "Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries". Journal of Third World Studies. Spring 2005. FindArticles.com. 21 May. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200504/ai_n13642842

Source :http://findarticles.com/p/articles

It's Our River -- Let Us Get to It

By JOHN CRONIN AND ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

New Yorkers are eager to reap the benefits of the Hudson River's comeback after decades of cleanup efforts that have cost billions of dollars. But while state and local officials are struggling to meet demand for more access to the river, the Metro-North Commuter Railroad is quietly waging a campaign to keep the public away.

When the Hudson Line, which runs along the river's east shore, was completed in 1851, people regularly crossed the tracks to fish, swim or picnic. But in recent years Metro-North, in the name of public safety, has been trying to make criminals out of those who simply want to enjoy such activities.

On an August day in 1992, Ed Nazak of Wappinger Falls, N.Y., his wife and two sons crossed the tracks in New Hamburg and set out down the river in their canoe. A few hundred feet from where they put in, a Metro-North police officer ordered them ashore. Mr. Nazak complied but under protest, asserting that the railroad ''couldn't possibly have the right to chase my family off the river.'' He was handcuffed, charged with criminal trespass and fingerprinted. In exchange for not contesting the charge and agreeing to stay away from the railroad tracks, he ultimately had his case dismissed.

Mr. Nazak's was the first of hundreds of such cases in New York. Fishermen, boaters, windsurfers, hikers and hunters say they have been ticketed, arrested or chased by Metro-North police, sometimes at gunpoint.

Of course Metro-North is concerned about the potential for injury when people cross railroad tracks. But people have crossed the tracks to get to the river for many years. And public safety will remain an issue as long as Metro-North refuses to provide proper crossings and pedestrian bridges, especially at popular fishing spots.

Indeed, the railroad has an obligation to allow the public to use the river. When the New York State Legislature turned over thousands of acres of Hudson shoreline and submerged land to the railroads in the mid-19th century, it required that they maintain all public access points to the water. Yet this requirement has been all but forgotten. Though turn-of-the-century maps show hundreds of crossing points between Albany and New York City, today there are fewer than 40 by which people can reach the river.

In Connecticut, by contrast, Metro-North's New Haven Line does not discourage public access to Long Island Sound. Under the state's coastal management law, the railroad is required to ''improve or have a negligible adverse effect on coastal access and recreation.''

The right of the public to use navigable waters is an ancient one. Roman law held that neither government nor private parties could cut off such access. In the early 13th century, the exclusion of the public from England's forests and streams helped prompt the citizen revolt that resulted in Magna Carta. Among the rights affirmed by Magna Carta were ''liberty of navigation'' and a ''free fishery.''

And in a landmark 1892 case, the United States Supreme Court nullified the Illinois Legislature's grant of a thousand acres of Lake Michigan shoreline and underwater land to the Illinois Central Railroad because it was ''a title held in trust for the people of the state that they may enjoy the navigation of waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein.''

An official of Metro-North recently responded to fishermen's pleas to reopen traditional rail crossings to the Hudson by saying that it is in the business of operating a railroad, not providing access to the river. Metro-North is indeed in the business of running a railroad. But it also has an obligation to let people use the river.

And until it does, the only place many families will feel safe enjoying the Hudson is from the window seat of a Metro-North train.

John Cronin is executive director of Riverkeeper, a nonprofit conservation group. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is co-director of the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace Law School. They are co-authors of the forthcoming ''The Riverkeepers.''

Source : http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807E2D6163AF935A15754C0A961958260

Islam & Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism

by Allen, Calvin H Jr

Kuran, Timur. Islam & Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. 194 pp.

Timur Kuran is professor of economics and law and the King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California. Islam and Mammon is not so much a systematic discussion of Islamic economics as a collection of six previously published articles that originally appeared between 1989 and 1997, with "editing... limited to stylistic standardization and minor cuts to avoid repetition" (p. xvii). Despite that limitation the chapters are held together by a basic theme that presents Islamic economics as a recent development, dating only to the 1940s, that has focused on the abolition of interest in an Islamic banking system, the redistribution of wealth through zakat (the religiously mandated charity) and inheritance laws, and the implementation of an Islamic ethical system. Kuran argues that this all fails as an economic system but is very important in creating a "sub-economy" based on Islamic identity. He sees this as a very dangerous trend, and one that is to be counteracted. To his credit, Kuran is very straightforward about his own bias in this discussion when he asserts that, "The organizing principles of an economy should be individual liberty and limited government." (p. 56).

The first chapter (article) "The Economic Impact oflslamism" (first published in 1993) attributes the origins of Islamic economics to the Indian/Pakistani Islamist Abu al-'Ala Mawdudi who presented it as a middle ground between the injustice of interest based capitalism and the inefficiencies of the marketless socialist system. Kuran then goes on to criticize the basic features of the Islamic economy, specifically interest free banking, which he argues utilizes legal devices (mudaraba, musharaka, ijara), often in corrupted forms, to charge interest under other names; the zakat system of wealth redistribution, which has had a negligible impact wherever it has been applied; and the application of Islamic morality. The second chapter "Islamic Economics and the Islamic Sub-economy" (1995) rehashes the interest-free banking, zakat, and values system discussions of the first chapter but directs much more attention to what Kuran sees as the major impact of Islamic economics, the creation and promotion of an Islamic identity, what he calls the Islamic sub-economy where Islamic business just means doing business with like-minded, i.e. Islamic, businesses. While criticizing the economic principles of this, Kuran does admit that this sub-economy has benefit in creating interpersonal trust in difficult socio-economic times. Chapter three "Islamism and Economics: Policy Prescriptions for a Free Society" (1997) revisits the Islamic sub-economy, arguing that the alleviation of socio-economic turmoil does not outweigh the potential harm caused by a failed economic system that imposes rigid social values that not only limit freedom but causes the have-not Islamic community to lash out against others. Kuran asserts that "Liberals" must both expose these failures and devise solutions to economic problems that cause Muslims to seek non-lslamist solution. In "Genesis of Islamic Economics" (1997) Kuran focuses on the historic development of Islamic economics, presenting Abu al-'Ala Mawdudi as a founder who was less concerned with economics than with an Islamic cultural renaissance and the protection of Islamic communal interests. Kuran goes on to ask why, if there is truly such a thing as Islamic economics, there is no evidence of such economic practices in past centuries when Islamic societies were greatly in need of economics reform and development. Chapter five "The Notion of Economic Justice in Contemporary Islamic Thought" (1989) provides an analysis of writings on Islamic economics and social justice, specifically the principles of equality and fairness embedded in the ban on interest, zakat, and inheritance. But to Kuran these writings fail in that the solutions offered are not suitable to modem economic conditions; they are based on outmoded economic practices, and there are too many disagreements over principles and applications. Finally, in "Islam and Underdevelopment" (1997) Kuran seeks an understanding of why Islamic societies are economically underdeveloped, rejecting the theses that this was caused by either European imperialism or a corruption of Islamic economic principles but focusing on social factors, most importantly communalism (i.e. greater concern with the rights and needs of the community than those of the individual) and the absence of public debate, what he calls preference falsification whereby individuals do not express their true opinions so as to avoid punishment of unpopular opinions.

It is not the least bit surprising that Kuran so opposes Islamic economics; he expresses his own classical liberal principles at the outset, and one would expect him to see one of the basic tenants of Islam, its communalism, as its principal cause of failure. Kuran also goes too far in rejecting the very notion of an Islamic economy because it has not lived up to its own principles. However, Kuran's major contribution, and the reason why this book should be read not just by economists but also historians and other social scientists interested in the Muslim world, is to identify and analyze the failure of the Islamic economic system, as represented by the Islamic banking system, zakat, and Islamic morality, to apply its own principles and to be satisfied with the sub-economy that Kuran so accurately describes.

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GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD ( part 5 )

by Irogbe, Kema

* The phase-out of the multi-fiber arrangement (which has allowed northern developed countries to place quotas on imports of textiles, clothing, and footwear) was supposed to be the aspect of the Uruguay Round to most immediately benefit the [underdeveloped] countries, or at least the countries that export these products. So far, however, these underdeveloped countries have not seen tangible benefits. This is because developed countries 'end-loaded' their implementation schedules so that most of the products they buy from the [underdeveloped] countries will only be liberalized at the end of the ten-year phase-out period. There is also a fear that non-tariff barriers will be used to continue to block the underdeveloped countries' products when the phase-out of tariffs is completed.

* The Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) was supposed to result in the reduction of agricultural subsidies in the North, and this was expected to improve the market access of those underdeveloped countries that export agricultural products. As it turned out, however, the agreement allowed the developed countries to maintain most of the high subsidies that existed prior to the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. For example, they are obliged to reduce domestic subsidies by only 20 percent. In contrast, most [underdeveloped] countries had no or little domestic or export subsidies. They are now barred by the AOA from having them or raising them in the future."

It is clearly obvious that the underdeveloped countries are barred from raising subsidies to support their farmers because the multinational corporations, using the WTO as its tool, want the peripheral countries to depend on export of food from the developed countries, primarily from the United States. Without government subsidies, small farmers cannot compete with the transnational corporations. And eventually, agricultural liberalization will contribute to world food prices being skyrocketed and the beneficiaries would be multinational corporations.

THE LONE SUPERPOWER

A great many people had hoped that the post-Cold War era would offer us new opportunities for peace and security in the world. Unfortunately, the end of the Cold War (around 1989) marked the beginning of an unprecedented and intense series of international conflicts. Some people thought that the competition during the bipolar era (the period of high tensions between the former USSR and the USA) that had a profound, and often violent, impact on many other societies was the root cause of the violence. Others believed that the balance of power had been replaced by collective security. In actuality, the collective security that was exercised by the United Nations against Iraq has vanished. Its replacement is a lone superpower - the United States of America! In building an empire around the world, the MNCs need the protection of their parent countries in order to control the host nations (mostly the underdeveloped countries) because without such protection their investments would be in peril. There are some apologists who have failed to understand the dynamic of global capitalism. As a consequence of the Untied States' claim of having conquered the fascists and communists of the world, the U.S. government now believes that it must create a favorable political climate in the international arena so that its MNCs as well as the MNCs of its European junior partners can penetrate to every comer of the globe, even the most remote territory. In doing so, the government is readily willing to repress any resistance or challenge to its lone superpower status. In the study of American foreign policy, Gabriel Kolko has concluded that:

Foreign policy decision-makers are in reality a highly mobile sector of the American corporate structure, a group of men who frequently assume and define high level policy tasks in government, rather than routinely administer it, and then return to business. The conclusion is that a small number of men fill the large majority of key foreign policy posts.38

From the days of "manifest destiny," the empire of the United States has been well supplied with such a creed. America's imperial creed since World War II has been "world responsibility". A former Treasurer and later Chairman of Standard oil of New Jersey, Leo D. Welch, once affirmed America's position: "American private enterprise is confronted with this choice: it may strike out and save its position all over the world, or sit by and witness its own funeral. We must set the pace and assume the responsibility of the majority stockholder in this corporation known to the world.. .Nor is this for a given term of office. This is a permanent responsibility."39 The developed countries are unified to a great extent in political affairs under the leadership of the United States. They are united politically by the fact that they face a common enemy at home and abroad; at home such as the riots in Seattle against the WTO and other protests across the country, and abroad such as the frequent attacks against the interests of the global corporations around the world.

The widespread military bases and the accompanying complex of expenditures at home and abroad, protecting present and potential sources of raw materials safe-guarding foreign markets and foreign investments, preserving spheres of influence such as the state of Israel - the "U.S. deputy peace-keeper", and maintaining the structure of world capitalist markets serve many purposes of special interest to the MNCs. In the words of former President Woodrow Wilson: "Suppose you go to Washington and try to get at your government. You will find that while you are politely listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the big stake - the big bankers, the big manufacturers, and the big masters of commerce...the masters of the government of the United States."40 This is why American diplomacy in the world cannot be viewed in isolation. It is part of a well-orchestrated global strategy aimed at safeguarding its interests and that of its European junior partners. In defending its interest, the U.S., the lone superpower, has become undoubtedly the international police force with the power to make, enforce, and adjudicate law. The United Nations is almost irrelevant or obsolete. In fact, it is now a tool of the United States for the implementation of American foreign policy. Take, for example, the case of Iraq. The sanctions against Iraq for its flagrant violation of international law by invading and annexing Kuwait were justifiably imposed. However, many countries including France, Russia and China shared the belief that it was time to lift the sanctions. But the United States, seconded by Britain, adamantly disagreed. Instead, the United States led a coalition-of-the-willing in an unprecedented unilateral, preemptive invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein's regime in March 2003 without the approval of the United Nations. Iraq, one of the so-called "axis of evil" as President Bush, Jr., referred to Iraq as well as North Korea and Iran in the 2002 State of the Union address, is now illegally occupied by the U.S.-led coalition-of-the-willing. The U.S. on-going military involvement in Nigeria cited earlier in this paper as well as in Colombia, Philippines, Afghanistan, and elsewhere under the disguise of fighting terrorism is all designed to protect the U.S. global economic interest.

CONCLUSION

This paper has argued that the MNCs, the Western media technology, the WTO, the IMF/World Bank, and the lone superpower - the United States of America - in the process of globalization are jointly responsible for the development of underdevelopment of the peripheral countries. What then is the answer? The world would be a lot better off without the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. We realize that we live in aninterdependent economic world and hence we do not prescribe an autarky as a solution to the problems of the underdeveloped countries. No country can realistically survive on its own without the collaboration and cooperation with others. But a genuine free trade must be mutually beneficial if it is to be sustainable. The imposition of globalization via homogenization of economic, social and political order is a recipe for unending conflicts. The world must foster internationalization by encouraging increasing collaboration of nation-states based on multiculturalism and diversity. Instead of an outright global economic integration, we endorse a regional integration such as the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union, the proposed common currency in West African countries etc. International relations ought to be based on mutual interest and respect. There ought to be reciprocity. An international arena based on the survival of the fittest cannot guarantee peace and security. It is tantamount to the choice between slavery and freedom. And Patrick Henry, one of the United States of America's founding fathers, gave us the answer to that question many years ago: "Give me liberty or give me death." Finally, the United States must be pressured both at home and abroad to abandon its unilateral global policy and pursue multilateral decision-making via the United Nations. But we find insufficient evidence to establish a more optimistic prognosis for that to happen. For the 'wretched of the earth', poverty-stricken, exploited and oppressed working class people in America and those around the world, a luta continua!

NOTES

1. Theotonio Dos Santos, "The Structure of Dependence," American Economie Review: Papers and Proceedings, IX, 2, No. 2 (May 1970). p. 231.

2. Osvaldo Sunkel, "Big Business" and "Oependencia" Foreign Affairs (April 1972). Pp. 517-531.

3. Daniel Offiong, Imperialism and Dependency (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co. Ltd., 1980). p. 74.

4. Offiong, Imperialism and Dependency, pp. 74-75.

5. Ibid

6. Ira Katznelson, et al., eds., The Politics and Society Reader (New York: David McKay Co., 1974). pp. 175-176.

7. Katznelson, et al., eds., The Politics and Society Reader, pp. 175-176.

8. Daniel S. Papp. Contemporary International Relations: Framework for Understanding, 5th edition (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1977). p. 107.

9. Ibid., pp. 96-97.

10. Sarah Anderson, (ed.) Views From the South: The Effects of Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries (Chicago, IL: Food First Books, 2000). pp. 159-162.

11. Ibid., p. 62.

12. Ibid.

13. Festus Iyayi, "Leadership and the Failed Nigeria Nation-State," Paper Delivered to the Association for Good Governance and Productive Leadership in Edo State at Saidi Centre, Benin City, Nigeria. (see Guardian, December 26, 2001htt:ngrguardiannews.com/appointments/ap843 612. html)

14. Laolu Akande, "U.S. Plans Possible Military Intervention in Niger Delta," Guardian, December 16, 2001.

15. Papp, Contemporary International Relations..., pp. 95-96.

16. Guardian, January 27, 2000.

17. This occurred during the writer's visit to Nigeria in December 1989.

18. Jay Dubashi, "Globalization Is Economic Terrorism," Smachar, October 10,2001 (htt://features.samachar.com/081001-fpj.html)

19. J. Sinclair, et al., New Patters in Global Television Peripheral Vision (Oxford: Oxford university Press, 1996).

20. U. Hennerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London, England: Routledge, 1996).

21. D. Morley and K. Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London, England: Rougledge, 1995).

22. E. Herman and R. McChesney, The Global media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism (London, England: Cassell, 1997).

23. Jeffrey D. Sachs, "With Friends Like IMF..." The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 6, 1998.

24. Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Global Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2001). p. 77.

25. Ibid.

26. Iyayi, "Leadership and Failed Nigeria Naion-State," pp. 2-13.

27. Ibid., p. 77.

28. Jay Dubashi, "Globalization Is Economic Terrorism," Samachar, October 10,2001.

29. Ibid.

30. Cited in the work of Walden Bello, (ed.), The Future in the Balance: Essays on Globalization and Resistance (Oakland, CA: Food First Books, 2001). p. 63.

31. Ibid.

32. Laurie R. Blank, The Role of International Financial Institutions in International Humanitarian Law (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2002). pp. 15-16.

33. Bello, (ed.), The Future in the Balance..., p. xii.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., p. 37.

36. Quoted in "Cakes and Caviar: The Dunkel Draft and Third World Agriculture," The Ecologisl, Volume 23, no. 6 (November December 1993). p. 220.

37. Sarah Anderson, Views from the South ...,pp. 22-23.

38. Kema Irogbe, The Roots of the U. S. Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985 (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997). pp. 26-27.

39. Irogbe, The Roots of United States Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985, p. 28.

40. Ibid., p. 29.

By Kema Irogbe*

* Professor of Political Science at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina. His areas of specialization are African politics, international relations, and public administration. He is the recipient of a number of awards including fellowships at Harvard and MIT. He has published articles in International Third World Studies Journal and Review, Race and Democracy, The A lexis de Tocqueville Tour: Exploring Democracy in America, and has authored a book: The Roots of United States Foreign Policy Toward Apartheid South Africa, 1969-1985. He is currently working on a naner: "Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Causes and Prosoects".

Copyright Association of Third World Studies, Inc. Spring 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

rogbe, Kema "GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD". Journal of Third World Studies. Spring 2005. FindArticles.com. 21 May. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200504/ai_n13642807

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GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD ( part 4 )

by Irogbe, Kema

Some of the crises in Africa threaten its peoples' traditional resiliency. The facts are grim. In material terms, the average African is poorer today than at independence, and it is predicted that poverty will only increase in the immediate future. The continent is faced with myriad of problems including the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (A.I.D. pandemic), foreign debt, mismanagement of resources, and armed conflicts. Even nature is not so kind to Africa. Drought conditions in recent decades have led to food shortages across the continent. According to Table II -Measuring Misery, a Human Development Report of 2002 published by the United Nations Development Program - nearly all the African countries are among the least underdeveloped countries of the world. With the exception of Seychelles (ranked 47), Libya (ranked 64), and Mauritius (ranked 67), the ranking of African states among world nations is from 100 to 173.
Therefore, nowhere are impacts of the IMF/World Bank machinations felt more intensely than Africa. As Festus Iyayi laments: "The fact (is) that the economy of Nigeria is not owned by Nigerians; that World Bank and IMF officials are in control of our national politics and economy; that we are indebted to external creditors to the tune of over $32 billion when, indeed, other nations should be indebted to us."26 As a consequence of the IMF/World Bank austerity measures that have been imposed on Nigeria in the late 198Os, the country, like many other Asian and Latin American countries, is steadily retrogressing; or simply put, Nigeria has all of the trappings of 'the development of underdevelopment'. The 2002 World Development report succinctly unravels the puzzle on Nigeria. The report provides information on the quality of life and the level of poverty in 174 countries in the world. According to the report, in 1998, Nigeria ranked 23rd poorest country in the world out of the 174 nations. Between 1980 and 1998, gross domestic GDP per capita in Nigeria declined from $314 in 1980 down to $258 in 1990 and to $256 in 1998. The average annual rate of change in GDP during the period was a negative 0.7 percent. The life expectancy at birth in 1998 was 51.5 years for females and 48.7 years for males. That means the life expectancy of the people of Nigeria at birth was only 50.1 years. Indeed, the report further revealed that 33.3 percent of the Nigerian population in 1998 was not expected to survive to age 40. Again, whereas, the poorest 20 percent of population had access to 4.4 percent of the national income, the richest 20 percent consumed 55.7 percent of the national income. In addition, 70.2 percent of the Nigerian population earned less than $ 1.0 a day between 1987 and 1998, indicating that at least 43 percent of the copulation lived below the poverty line.27 In the midst of the abundant data that show the declining economic development, the IMF and World Bank are now demanding the repayment of their loans while the Nigerian government is requesting for a debt relief.
Indeed, under the rubric of global ization championed by the IMF/World Bank, many other African countries besides Nigeria have been going through unprecedented economic distress. Table III - Development Indicators for Selected African Countries and the United States, 1992-1993 - illustrates the enormity of the problem.

The inference from the data is that life in contemporary Africa is a matter of survival. While the income per capita as an economic indicator of the growth of a nation-state is debatable because it does not show the complete development outlook, suffice it to say that great disparity exists between African countries and the United States. The continent displays a great diversity in lifestyles and jobs. Approximately 70 percent of Africans live in rural areas and work in agriculture. Yet, the World Bank/IMF lending activities are not targeted at the grassroots where the peasants can be part of the development plans. Instead, development plans are usually urban-centered and the peasants are marginalized. Even a large number of the other roughly 30 percent of the African population who reside in the cities or urban areas have chronic problem of joblessness. A small number of the people in the cities make a very good living, but others barely make enough money to keep them from starving. The unemployed and the unemployable usually resort to social vices such as prostitution, drug abuse, begging, stealing, and similar activities. Indeed, large African cities are populated with beggars many of whom are children.

The African conditions as well as the Asian and the Latin American predicaments are the direct result of the policies of the IMF/World Bank. Globalization is not just a vague concept like liberty or equality. It is actually a well-planned program with an agenda for action. This agenda is known as "Washington Consensus,"28 an idea conceived by the United States government in close collaboration with the IMF/World Bank. It stands for ten policies, detailed in the Consensus document. They are (a) free trade; (b) freely flowing FCI; (c) fiscal disciplines meaning smaller budget deficits; (d) cuts in subsidies; (e) tax reforms; (f) competitive exchange rates; (g) liberalized financial systems; (h) privatization; (i) deregulation; and (j) property rights.29

There is little doubt that the agenda had been carefully designed to serve the needs of the rich nations at the expense of the poor. The developed countries have surplus capital. When the American capitalists started to accumulate surplus capital around 1980 or so, globalization like mercantilism, was envisioned. But it did not take off. It needed time for maturity considering the presence of the Cold War. However, following the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and the fashioning of privatization and democratization in those countries, the capitalists declared victory (see the works of Francis Fukuyama 1989 and 1992 - The End of History) and embarked on a mission to unify the world into one economic, political, and social entity. Thus, globalization designed to homogenize the world into a monoculture earnestly began in 1990. Its first test was Iraq. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 presented an opportunity for the United States to test its victory in the aftermath of the Cold War. The invocation of collective security and the use of military force against Iraq marked the first time the United Nations applied the collective security in its charter other than in 1950 in Korea (note that the former USSR, a permanent member with veto power, was not present in the security Council to cast a vote).

Indeed, the Bretton Woods twin sisters have failed woefully to alleviate poverty in the world. They have failed because they were never designed to serve the interest of anyone but their shareholders. Instead of promoting economic growth, the IMF and the World Bank have institutionalized economic stagnation in the underdeveloped countries. They are irrelevant to the central goal of eliminating global poverty. Driven by the interests of key political and economic institutions in the Group of Seven (G-7) countries, in particular the United States, the IMF and the World Bank are more concerned about the internal imperative of capitalist expansionism or empire building for capital accumulation. In terms of achieving positive development impact, a Meltzer Report in April 2000 indicates that the World Bank's own evaluation of its projects shows an outstanding 55-60 percent failure rate. The failure rate is particularly high in the poorest countries, where it ranges from 65 percent to 70 percent.30 These are the very countries that are supposed to be the main targets of the Bank's anti-poverty approach. The report states that the rhetoric about focusing on poverty alleviation is contradicted by the reality that 70 percent of the Bank's non-aid lending is concentrated in 11 countries, while the Bank's 145 other member countries are left to divide the remaining 30 percent. Moreover, the report concludes that: "80 percent of World Bank resources have gone, not to poor countries with poor credit ratings and investment ratings, but to countries that could have raised the money in international private capital markets owing to their having investment grade or high yield ratings."31

Furthermore, the World Bank in its quest for capital accumulation lends money to that states noted for atrocities including gross violations of human rights. This has been observed: "In Fiscal Year 2001 alone, the World Bank extended capital commitments totaling $17.3 billion...., in many cases to states that have been the venues for atrocities and abuses committed by either the government or other groups."32 It is important to note that a government engaged in or facilitating atrocities will have less incentive to adhere to international legal norms if it continues to receive funds from the World Bank or the IMF without any consideration of the atrocities or the impunity of those responsible. The issue is not whether the Bretton Woods Twin Sisters should automatically cease all activities in a country at the first sign of humanitarian law violations. The power of the purse is not even used by the institutions as one of the loudest voices, one that can be applied to complement the efforts by the United Nations, some concerned states, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to protect civilians and prevent violations of international humanitarian law. Diplomatic pressure will lose its muscle when matched with "reverse" economic incentives to the states that undermine the gross violations of human rights.

THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) created the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 to oversee and implement the reductions in tariff and other non-tariff barriers that it negotiated. The WTO provides procedures for negotiating more tariff reductions and ruling on disputes arising over trade. Indeed, the WTO superseded GATT in all of its functions, and is now the world's organization for supposedly global trade enhancement. In 2000, it had over 140 members that included states from the peripheral countries. Its major body is a Ministerial Conference that meets at least once every two years to discuss and resolve trade policy issues. The WTO also has a General Council that oversees its operations, dispute settlement efforts, and other decisions. The General Council concentrates its activities in three areas: trade in goods, trade in services, and trade-related aspects of intellectual property protection.
With this backdrop, let us highlight the influence of the WTO on the underdeveloped countries not simply by examining its policy as preached but the reality of the policy as practiced. Although, the WTO proclaims to be the champion of facilitating or enhancing international trade by removing the trade barriers, on the contrary, it is a tool of multinational corporations that assault national sovereignty and cause environmental degradation. The protests or demonstrations and riots that greeted the WTO's 1999 ministerial conference in Seattle are a vivid reminder that, to paraphrase the late Reggae Superstar Bob Marley, "You can fool some people sometimes but you cannot fool them all the time". An increasing number of American working class has become aware of the shenanigans of the WTO. Supposedly an agent of free trade, the WTO's most important agreements promoted monopoly for U.S. firms: the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement consolidated the hold over high tech innovations by U. S. corporations like Intel and Microsoft, while the Agreement on Agriculture institutionalized a system of monopolistic competition for third-country markets between agribusiness interests of the United States and the European Union.33 The motives for the introduction of the trade-related intellectual property rights were: to enable their firms to capture more profits through monopolistic higher prices and through royalties and the sale of technology products; and to put in place stiff barriers preventing the technological development of potential new rivals from the peripheral countries. This confirms our theoretical assumption that transfer of technology is a myth rather than a reality. There is no wonder why American Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world. A man who is believed to be worth over $70 billion, a figure comparable to nearly all the yearly gross national products of African countries combined. While he may be legally challenged at home for monopolistic tendency or for his alleged Anti-Trust Act violations, he is certain to accrue enormous royalties from his international business deals. As one observer aptly argues:
When the Asian financial crisis engulfed countries that had been seen by many in the U.S. business and political elites as America's most formidable competitors, Washington did not try to save the Asian economies by promoting expansionary policies. Instead, it used IMF to dismantle the structures of state-assisted Asian capitalism that had been regarded as formidable barriers to the entry of goods and investments from U.S. transnational [corporations] that had been clamoring vociferously for years to get their piece of the "Asian Miracle." It was less the belief in spreading the alleged benefits of free trade than maximizing geo-economic and geo-strategic advantage that lay behind U.S. support for the policies of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO.34

The WTO serves the interests of the United States and its European junior partners. As Chalmers Johnson has posited: "A good case can be made that Washington's opportunistic behavior during the Asian financial crisis reflected the fact that "having defeated the fascists and the communists, the United States now sought to defeat its last remaining rivals for global dominance; the nations of East Asia that had used the conditions of the Cold War to enrich themselves."35 Under the disguise of free trade, the U.S. government uses the WTO to protect the market for its multinational corporations. Just as it was the United States' threat in the 1950s to leave GATT if it was not allowed to maintain protective mechanisms for milk and other agricultural products that led to agricultural trade's exemption from the GATT's rules, it was the U. S. pressure that brought the agriculture into the GATT-WTO system in 1995. The reason for Washington's change of mind was articulated quite candidly by the then Agriculture secretary John Block at the start of the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1986: "The idea that the [underdeveloped] countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on U.S. agricultural products, which are available, in most cases at much lower cost."36 Predictably, it is not the concern of the metropolitan countries to assist the peripheral countries to become self-reliant. Political realists would remind us that each nation must seek for self-protection and self-reliance. The underdeveloped countries cannot expect the developed countries that had enslaved and colonized them to be a part of their solutions but rather the marginalized countries should view the now advanced, industrialized nation-states as an appendage to their problems.

The underdeveloped countries were expecting that the Uruguay Round would bring some desirable benefits; instead, there have often been many disappointments. The following are some examples of the potential benefits of the Uruguay Round that have not materialized:

* A lowering of northern countries' industrial tariffs may benefit those southern countries with a manufacturing export capacity. Even then, the reduction of average industrial tariffs in developed countries has only been from 6.3 percent to 3.8 percent, which means that an imported product costing $100 before duty could enter after duty at $104 instead of the previous $106, which is not a significant reduction. And "tariff peaks" (or higher-than-average import duties) remain for many products that [underdeveloped] countries export. For instance the U.S. tariff for orange juice is 31 percent.

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