Globalization a reviled word

By Yasmin Anwar
Advertiser Staff Writer

As Honolulu braces for anti-globalist forces to descend on the Asian Development Bank summit, many here are unclear about exactly who the enemy is.

What is globalization? And why are activists raising a ruckus about it?

Moreover, why is the latest target of anti-globalization a Manila-based multilateral lending institution whose stated goal is

to reduce poverty in the Asia-Pacific region?

"Our goal is to reduce infant mortality, maternal mortality, to have primary education for everyone. Does that sound like an evil empire?" said Ian Gill, senior spokesman for the ADB.

Blame it on globalization.

Some call it McDonaldsization, others call it corporate greed; globalization is equated with an unchecked spread of mass-produced goods and ideas across traditional national boundaries. Like the Internet, it connects the world.

Attendees at the Asian Development Bank meeting check out the conference's program board today. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

While globalization has made fast-food restaurants and goods from Nike, Starbucks and The Gap available to everyone, critics say it fosters cultural and economic hegemony, not to mention tension between global ways and local traditions.

The ADB, a close cousin of the World Bank and World Trade Organization, is accused of being an agent of globalization. Critics object to a multilateral lending institution forcing its western industrial ideas on traditional cultures in developing countries.

Moreover, they charge that projects financed by the bank, such as dams, water treatment plants and irrigation networks, have harmed the environment and benefitted large multinational corporations rather than the communities the bank is supposed to help.

"Their policies have displaced tens of thousands of people," said Cha Smith, a member of ADBwatch and executive director of Kahea, a Hawai'i-based environmental alliance.

Jeannine Marks of Aloha Resources Inc. greets Peter Balon of the Asian Development Bank treasurer's department. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

As evident at previous anti-globalization demonstrations, the movement is all over the map.

"The litany of castigation ranges across a broad spectrum, including low paying wages ... depleting old growth and rainforests, using unsafe pesticides, bio-engineering agriculture crops, violating animal rights and colluding with violent and repressive regimes," says a 2000 Canadian Intelligence Service Report on the anti-globalization movement.

Such concerns also resonate in Hawai'i, where protection of the natural environment and native cultural rights are high priorities, and where local culture is often considered preferable to Mainland mass commercialism.at the

Stephanie Freed, a senior scientist with Environmental Defense and an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center University of Hawaii-Manoa, says three classes of people are likely to raise direct concerns about the ADB in Hawai'i: those affected by ADB-financed projects, donors to the ADB and Hawai'i residents who are appalled by adjustments the state has made to accommodate the May 7-11 summit.

"The people whose rivers were poisoned and whose lands were taken will want to tell what happened to their villages," she said.

Seiji Naya, an economist who heads the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, says the issues are complex, but characterizes the ADB as important to its constituent nations.

ADB was created in 1966 amid a Cold War push to modernize Asia's poorest countries. Its 31 founding members included Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nepal, the Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Joshua Cooper, co-coordinator of ADBwatch, goes over protest plans with other activists. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

The bank doles out about $6 billion a year in loans, charging a 1 percent interest rate to the poorest countries.

In recent years, it has taken on poverty reduction as its top priority, shifting its emphasis from large public works projects to social programs. Gill says the bank is committed to community empowerment, and that nongovernmental organizations have a say in a majority of the bank's projects.

Nonetheless, the bank continues to draw the ire of conservationists and other activists.

At last year's ADB meeting in Thailand, a group of nongovernmental organization representatives and concerned citizens calling themselves The People's Forum accused the ADB of "violating citizens' rights to use and manage local resources, polluting and destroying the environment and undermining citizens food and livelihood security."

One project of concern is the Samut Prakarn Wastewater Management Project, which they feared would release wastewater contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic emissions into one of the most productive fishing grounds in the Gulf of Thailand.

They also alleged there was corruption involved in the project.

Gill said the Samut Prakarn is intended to clean up Thailand's most industrialized and polluted province.

"At present, hazardous waste flows freely in open drains, canals and rivers, posing health hazards to the province's 1 million residents and endangering marine life in the Gulf of Thailand, where much of the waste ends up," Gill said.

As for corruption, he said, "We have investigated allegations against ADB staff and found no evidence to support this, and have closed the case. Thailand's National Counter Corruption Commission is looking into allegations over the land acquisition, but ADB is satisfied the procedures met with ADB's stringent requirements."