Bank's idea of progress has made many suffer
| • | Projects help those who are poorest |
| • | Aid projects often ignore effect on poor |
| • | Global capitalism will help the poor |
By Joshua Cooper
Across the globe, an effort is under way to transform today's conditions of third-world impoverishment and multinational control toward a new vision of a global civil society based on grassroots empowerment and social activism.
ADBwatch is among those non-governmental organizations that are committed to this vision.
We are determined to speak to this vision when the Asian Development Bank meets here next month. It is important because we believe the Bank and our governor are determined to push Hawai'i into accepting globalization as the wave of the future.
It doesn't have to be that way.
The May meeting of the ADB in Honolulu is cause for concern.
The Asian Development Bank's record marks it as an international financial institution where anti-democratic policies cause misery and environmental destruction.
Those living in areas that have been touched by ADB policies understand the impact. They live with the unanticipated and undesired consequences of ADB-sponsored dams, drillings, and destruction of natural resources from forests to fish livestock.
Before construction of the Klong Dan project in Thailand, for instance, there was no environmental impact assessment and no public hearings.
Residents opposed the project due to pollution and the impact it would have on people's livelihoods. Even though 100 Thai Senators asked the bank to review the project, construction work intensified to build what is to be one of Southeast Asia's biggest wastewater treatment facilities. But while it will collect and treat wastewater from factories and households, it also will destroy the fisheries that provide employment. Treated wastewaters will be flushed into the Gulf of Thailand, diluting the salinity level vital for mussel and shrimp farming.
On a local level, the Honolulu ADB meeting's security policies aren't intended to protect those of us who live here. Rather, they aim to protect an institution with a less than commendable record.
At its previous meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, more than 5,000 people affected by the bank's policy decisions — fishers, farmers and peasants — peacefully asked the officials to leave. Our politicians and police are doing everything within the law and even beyond to prevent even this.
The largest law-enforcement operation Hawai'i has ever seen is simply not necessary. All we want to do is speak truth to power in a nonviolent way.
We want hard answers to hard questions: Why is poverty increasing with each ADB project? Why are natural resources dwindling? And, at home, what riot gear has been purchased? How is it intended to be used? How can our state declare city blocks a no-protest zone? Why can't nonviolent organizers obtain march permits?
ADBwatch is creating a community rooted in resistance, celebrating life and our link with the 'aina. We want a world based on justice, equality, dignity and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.
The institutions and corporations associated with the Asian Development Bank exploit natural and human resources in the name of profit and progress.
We know there is an alternative model. We have a choice.
Joshua Cooper is director of the Hawai'i Institute for Human Rights and lecturer at the International Training Center for Teaching Peace and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.
