Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/imf4srilanka052109.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 20 – With the Red Cross blocked from access in Sri Lanka to the wounded and dying, with NGOs increasingly barred from the UN-financed camps for IDPs, in Washington the International Monetary Fund said Thursday that it looks forward to presenting for approval to its Board Sri Lanka's request for a $1.9 billion loan.
The statement was made by the IMF's director of external relations Caroline Atkinson. Inner City Press online asked a follow-up during the Fund's biweekly press briefing, which Ms. Atkinson re-stated: please state whether as the Sri Lankan government says the proceeds of any IMF loan would support re-housing in the north, which some would described as ethnic cleansing?
The IMF's Ms. Atkinson responded, “Perhaps it's just helpful to clarify that when the IMF lends, it is not for specific projects. We lend to support a country's finances. We make a loan to the Central Bank to support reserves. Any other question?”
On March 12, Inner City Press went to the IMF in Washington and asked Ms. Atkinson's colleague David Hawley what safeguards were being considered to ensure that the proceeds of any IMF loan to Sri Lanka wouldn't be enable war or ethnic relocation. Mr. Hawley said that things were at an early stage. Later, French Ambassador to the UN Jean-Maurice Ripert told Inner City Press that “the Americans are trying to play with the loan.”
The U.S. subsequently confirmed this, receiving human rights credit for raising the issue. The UK has as well. After a contrary statement by the UK Ambassador to the UN, in response to Inner City Press' question at the UN Security Council stakeout, UK Foreign Minister David Miliband said he didn't think conditions for an IMF loan to Sri Lanka were right. Are they now?
Now, after two weeks ago refusing to take the question at their briefing, the IMF says that while there is still no access to the killing zone in the North, while doctors who reported on the war as well as offering treatment are detained and interrogated, it wants to present the loan for approval by its Board within weeks.
What happened, some ask, to the ostensibly US and UK opposition? At the US State Department this week, the Obama Administration appeared to waiver or move on from it previous position, both on the loan and as stated by the President following Time magazine's diagnosis that Barack Obama was failing the Sri Lanka test.
The IMF's implicit argument that it is not supporting what a government does on the ground by lending to its Central Bank is specious. In fact, many experts on Sri Lanka note that the government's military offensive in the North was assisted not only by aid after the tsunami, but even more by the proceeds, to the Central Bank, of debt forgiveness. Now during the current crisis the IMF wants to make a loan to the Sri Lankan Central Bank. Ms. Atkinson alluded to, but did not give an explanation as requested by Inner City Press, of a “larger facility” being discussed.
Victor's justice, victor's loans, some call it, as they call the UN's Ban Ki-moon's impending visit to Sri Lanka a sort of victory tour. Inner City Press leaves today on the UN trip. Watch this site.
In Geneva on Monday, the UN Human Rights Council has scheduled a session on Sri Lanka. There is talk of satellite photos being used, to show deep mortar craters in the “No Fire” Zone. There are stories of senior LTTE leaders trying to surrender, carrying white flags, shot to death.And see, www.innercitypress.com/imf4srilanka052109.html
