Although I am unlikely to be in a rush to join either of these organisations, today is a day a day I can say I am for once in agreement with their current campaigns.
Amnesty is campaigning against Castro’s crackdown on dissidents. OK he might not change his ways just because you send a letter of complaint, but Amnesty also, rightly, reckons the US government embargo needs to go. More contact will weaken, not strengthen Castro. And anyway, if I want to go to Cuba, what business is it of the US government?
Oxfam has also been making some helpful noises on Trade for Africa, on CNBC in Evian one of their spokespeople rightly said aid did not matter any where as near as much as trade. The best thing for Africa would be an end to subsidies for American and European farmers. Their latest paper on the G8 summit has the usual nonsense about how poor taxpayers in the West should subsidise rich kleptocratic dictators in Africa through government-to-government aid, but also calls on G8 governments to…
Address the enourmous harm being done by the subsidies rich Western Countries pay their farm sectors to produce a glut of cheap food which is dumped on world markets, undercutting African farmers and robbing their livelihoods. To fight a war on unfair trade rules, the G8 countries should: Immediately stop using subsidies and export credits that cause over-production and dumping of surpluses in developing countries. Open their own markets to all products from Africa and other low-income countries.
Looks like the message is semi-seeping through to NGOs.
As for Bono and Oxfam’s “Drop the debt” campaign, even a greedy capitalist like myself recognises that debts derived from old Cold War era geo-political bribes should not burden Africa’s children. Time for a market-solution to the debt. Let the failed-states go bankrupt. Alternative, better, delivery mechanisms for education and healthcare can be created. Africa doesn’t need corrupt governments and armies, it needs teachers and nurses.
WOW! the day has come. I actually agree with BOTH Oxfam and Amnesty. I’m not sure whether to check for the coming of the apocalypse, or a link to The Onion.
Actually you can travel to Cuba, the customs guys will, for a small gratuity, fail to stamp your passport.
The political campaigning of Oxfam has long been unhinged, though I think I’d still want them around in a disaster. It must be unhealthy for a charity ot take direct government funding, though. They are unlikely to come out against government-to-government “development aid” any time soon.
What have you both against Amnesty though?
I have long said that Africa doesn’t need aid. It needs a break. End the obscene CAP and let cheap and delicious African produce flood our markets. It’s hypocritical of Tony Blair (now, there’s a surprise!) to be giving aid to African countries that would be perfectly capable of earning their own living if they were not kept dependent and out of markets to which they should have an automatic right of access.
So an organisation who regularly sends free food to Africa wants us to, er, stop sending cheap food to Africa?
Guy: nothing wrong with Amnesty International…if you believe that the United States is the font of all human rights abuse. They spill far more ink scolding the US (for everything from capital punishment to the number of blacks in prison) than they’ve ever spent condemning the likes of Saddam Hussein.
Both these groups are so politicized, I wouldn’t glance down if they told me my pants were on fire.
As ever, the devil is in the detail. Oxfam’s rhetoric looks good, but their campaign goals suggest a lurking fondness for protectionism. Thus they want, amongst other things:
“a new international commodities institution to promote diversification and end over-supply in order to raise prices to levels consistent with a reasonable standard of living for producers, and changing corporate practices so that companies pay fair prices.”
In other words, a global CAP, but not just limited to agriculture.
p.s. blatant self-publicity – I blogged on this very subject yesterday at my new blog, minarchist musings
Someone once suggested that the easing of the Cuba embargo could start by allowing the export of computers, fax machines, and satellite dishes. Maybe in time we’d start seeing some websites like aplaste-el-estado.blogspot.com 🙂
Africa simply needs massive government reform and, in some cases, government replacement. (From the halls of Bob Mu-ga-a-be, to the shores of Tri-po-liii…) Commerce won’t even rise up to Euroweenie socialist basket case standards as long as that continent is dominated by tinhorn dictators, corrput governments, and armed insurgents.
Hm Weasel,
Don’t think you are being quite fair.
Just had a look at their web page and the current urgent appeals seem to be:
Iraq (mostly not the US); G8 (focussed on africa); Cuba; Russia; Malaysia; Zimbabwe; Congo; Azerbaijan; Philippines; Germany; Vietnam; Brazil; Zimbabwe (again); Nigeria; Turkey; Afghanistan; Jamaica; Saudi Arabia; and Cote d’Ivoire.
The US’s influence is rather a peripheral concern in that list, though it has certainly not behaved in an exemplary fashion recently.
Since they’re against the death penalty in principle, I’d imagine the US as an enthusiastic user will come in for a share of criticism, which is legitimate.
As for politicisation: surely Amnesty’s motives are fundamentally political–how could they not be “politicised”? Oxfam has much more difficulty with that criticism, which militates against its formal charitable status.
My husband has often expressed the wish that African states would go bankrupt, not out of hostility to the people there, but rather on the grounds that then the receivers would come in and run them better than they are run now.
One can imagine that there might be specialised companies offering to put nations back on their feet in the same way that companies offer to do the same for insolvent individuals.
Hm, Guy
Don’t think you’re being quite honest.
I don’t accept that human rights are a partisan issue. Or did you mean that human rights organizations evaluate governments and governments are political organizations therefore human rights organizations are political organizations? Huh!
A list of articles on AI’s index page today is hardly proof that they deal even-handedly and proportionately with US issues or that they blame tyrants for the messes they make as often as they blame the West for not cleaning up those messes better.
I certainly won’t accept that US use of capital punishment is “enthusiastic”.
And, while I believe few governments ever behave in an exemplary fashion, what makes the US stand out in that regard recently? And compared to whom?
Natalie,
What a great idea, national receivership! Why leave it to the IMF and their structural adjustment programs. Actually I think the University of Chicago and Alfred Sherman did something like that for Chile in the 80s.
Who is going to pay for it is the problem. Nation State Management Consultants would expect some kind of reward – perhaps resource contracts.
There might also be problems of democratic legitimacy.
Maybe a new kind of NGO is required, for profit but for the public good…
Natalie! What a brilliant idea! I’ll bet it would work. Could be the saving of poor, damaged Africa!
Paul Staines – no NGOs thank you. Let’s just let a big, greedy company looking to maximise its own profits by successfuly transforming a national economy get to grips with it and let nature take its course.
What a radical, exciting idea!
if I want to go to Cuba, what business is it of the US government?
Thank the Cuban exiles in Miami. If they had moved to a less-populous state – one that didn’t matter in just about every presidential contest – it would be a different matter entirely.
In what way dishonest Weasel? What do you think I’m lying about?
Your comment sent me to do a quick check on them, to see if indeed the organisation “believe that the United States is the font of all human rights abuse“…. It doesn’t appear to me that they do. And nor do I.
When I say “not exemplary” I’m thinking of 2 things: large scale arbitrary detentions without trial, charge or other fair process; and more or less open endorsement by officials of the use of torture by its allies. Neither is very creditable if you claim to be fighting for freedom.
Sure there are lots of nasty regimes around–but the point is not that the US is better than them. Previously the US has had patches of being a pretty good example of a constitutionally limited state. Currently it is considerably worse than it was.
Trouble with bankruptcy for countries is the supra-national authority required to make it work. Would delinquent dictators be barred from governing another country? And what about those who simply failed to govern as the regulator saw fit?
Not sure we want to go down that road–even in a cheap second-hand Merc.
Guy Herbert … why would we need to ban dictators from “governing” – if that is not too strong a term – other countries? Africa is not a great big homogenous mass. How on earth would a failed dictator of one country be able to magically stand for “election” – however skewed – in another, with a different history, different ethnicities and different languages? You mean, all the embedded special interest politicians and tribes with thousands of years invested in an area wouldn’t notice a foreigner who couldn’t speak their languages swanning in and standing for election, although without citizenship requirements?
Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I doubt that dictators could bounce around the world that freely. Could Mugabe stand to be dictator of Britain? France even without a kissy-face from Jacques Chirac? Germany?
And why would we need ‘regulators’? Let the administering companies move in, be paid by result, and let’s see what happens. No NGOs. No regulators. It’ll work, or it won’t. If it doesn’t work, why would we want to prop it up with ‘regulators’?
What is it with you people are your love for big, greedy corps? There’s nothing great or free about living in a land where CEOs make all of the decisions, and only a lunatic would want national decisions based on GREED. Just wait until artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and other human-replacement technologies make their debut and you’ll see what it’s like living under the shadow of the greedy!
X how is it that you don’t recognize the obvious? It isn’t any particular love for corporations that drives us, it is mistrust of ever more powerful and less acountable entities, governments.
I must second liberty Belle we don’t need regulators or anything of the sort, we don’t need to “ban” Mugabeor his like, we merely need to stop offering him a way out of the financial straights. If we allowed countries to go bankrupt the regimes who got them there cannot last. True they may be replaced by equally shoddy regimes in the short run, but sooner or later these countries will figure it out.
Oh, right, and POLITICIANS are TOTALLY different, right X? Duh.
Anyway, the only way ‘corporates’ can force people to do things is when they are able to manipulate the state into stacking the deck in their favor (i.e. like when conservatives provide corporate welfare to their favorite businesses or socialists (aka liberals) regulate the fuck out of things, which only ever favors established players and discourages new people coming in and challenging established corporations)… but that means the problem is not really the coporations but the fact the STATE is structured in such a way to prevent actual FREE trade.
I don’t want NATIONAL decisions made by anyone… not by a business with politicians in their pocket, not by politicians and certainly not by you, Mr. X… Just say NO to ‘national decisions’ and fuck all political (which means force backed) interactions.
And I look forward to nanotech… I want to be the first cyborg on my block. Seriously.
I must learn to be less oblique, since this is the second time I’ve been badly misunderstood in the same set of comments.
Of course, I wasn’t genuinely suggesting the dictators could practically be treated like that–tho’ it’s worth noting if states are to be dissolved, then governing in the same place geographically would still be governing “another country”–or that there _ought_ be an international regulator. What I was trying to do was point up the absurdity of the idea of liquidating a regime. It would require force–a lot of force. There’s no reason for them to go quietly.
Domestic systems of corporate bankruptcy work because they are embedded within legal systems that have power over the people and institutions involved. There is no equivalent with states. And I’d suggest that it’s would be a really bad idea if there were.
Absent that, how are the administrators to move in? Well, they’d need an army, and not to expect much to be un-looted when they arrived. (I was once asked to help find a forensic accountant intrepid enough, guaranteed a substantial 24-hour armed guard, to investigate the whereabouts of a missing $100M chemical plant, which a firm of consultant engineers could have sworn they put down somewhere in Africa. I don’t know if they eventually found any takers.) Then you’d have corporate bureaucrats trying to extract their money from the people at gunpoint in place of state ones. There’s no reason to suppose they’d be more humane.
Yes, by all means cut off new financial support to defaulting regimes. But that’s the only sanction available. It does seem to work fairly well for the World Bank. Unfortunately, while they are subject to insolvency law themselves, commercial lenders find it easier to reschedule big loans than write them off. Let alone equip an army.
X,
I research AI as part of my PhD studies. What ills do you see with AI, (et al), and other human-replacement technologies?
First… everytime that asshat Bono starts bleating about forgiving the debt he’s in Nigeria an oil producing OPEC state that ran up it’s debts exploitively not as a cold-war-legacy.
Second… there are two prison systems in Cuba… Castro provides people a 5 foot by 10 foot cell for expressing any attitude about him… America’s Guantanamo Bay has resulted in weight gain amongst detainees of 13 pounds on average amongst the 664 released so far…
So who does AI say are the bad guys? In their moral equivalency world gaining some pounds over a few months for trying to kill innocents is a ‘worse violation of human rights’ then dissent from Castro’s cult of personality dictatorship getting you hard time for some real time.
To the Asshats of Amnesty International it’s better to be left then “right”.