by Arshad Sharif ISLAMABAD -- Consider the realities that more than 21 million people died in Third World countries after World War II. The Third World debt is way over $1,000 billion today.
Since World War II, governments spent close to $10 trillion dollars on defense, an amount enough to feed the entire world.
Analyzing the lopsided policies of the global powers, devised to keep the poor countries in perpetual cycle of poverty, Najma Sadeque of Shirkat Gah, women's resource center, details the causes in three publications titled "Why We Are Poverty Stricken," "How They Run Pakistan," and "Debt by Entrapment: How Two UN Created Banks Recolonized the South."
In the chapter titled, "The Making of the Third World," the author after probing the reader's mind with a question as to who eats the world's grain, reveals that some 40 per cent of the world's food grain are fed to Northern livestock. "In fact rich countries feed more grain to their livestock than the people and animals of the poor countries combined get to eat."
Examining reasons for poverty entrapment of the poor countries, Ms Sadeque says: "Over the past half century, thousands of billions of dollars of foreign aid and investment have been poured into over a hundred countries supposedly for development. It has only resulted in greater impoverishment among poor people." She then discusses how the perpetual cycle of debt strangles the economies of the poor countries.
Highlighting the consequences and effects of debt entrapment, she said after over 50 years of loan taking the South was more debt-ridden and poorer than ever before.
"The visible affluence in our cities only reflects elite monopoly and power." Many countries were incapable of repaying their loans and neither were the masses uplifted nor had they become self-reliant, the author said.
In a comparative analysis of the might of military industrial complex with the developmental priorities, she said while the official aid given directly by one country to another can sometimes be generous, developed countries on an average devote less than one per cent of their budgets to development aid.
"It is minuscule compared to what is spent on arms and luxuries as the former Soviet Union and the USA together spent over $500 billion annually or $1.54 billion daily on their militaries and arms.
Breaking the myths propagated by the governments about the humane pro-poor policies of the World Bank and the IMF, the author said the reality was far from truth.
"Created by the United Nations, the WB as the name suggests is there to help the world, especially the poorest nations but it is far from true. The WB and IMF operate like any commercial bank but with vast additional powers to dictate governments. The Third World debt is way over $1000 billion today."
Terming the multinational and transnational corporations as the global feudals, the author points out that four fifths of the world's top 200 multi-national corporations are based in just five countries with 40 per cent of these in the USA alone. "Less than a decade ago, their combined sales were over $3,000 billion, an amount equivalent to one third of the world's Gross Domestic Product. Since then their profits have soared 350 per cent."
Exploring the militarization of world society and its effects, the author said there had been over 200 wars since 1945 with almost all of them occurring in the third world as proxy wars for the North.
In 95 per cent conflicts, there have been outside interventions fought with weapons supplied mainly by the great powers as in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. The total 21 million died in East and South Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America, more than twice as many civilians died as military personnel, the author pointed out.
