By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 16 -- Leaked cables link Maldives' push for International Monetary Fund assistance with the country accepting prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay. The IMF has had nothing to say about this, and Thursday's end of year press briefing by IMF spokesperson Carolyn Atkinson was so abbreviated that the even the question could not be asked.
The US also linked $50 million in aid to Maldives supporting the Copenhagen deal on climate change. Inner City Press asked UN official Robert Orr, who was extolling the more recent Cancun conference, about this, but he refused to comment on leaked cables, and called this just the “push and pull” of member states.
But both revelations bring into question how members of the IMF's Executive Board use their voting and other powers with the IMF to accomplish other, unrelated political and economic goals. This will be a topic in 2011. Watch this site.
Inner City Press submitted, during Ms. Atkinson's briefing, the following question which has yet to be answered:
“On Cote d'Ivoire, please describe the IMF's engagement in the past days and weeks: if with the Ouattara government, with whom and how? Any contacts with Gbagbo officials?”
When an answer is received, it will be reported on this site.