Communist Web Sunday 21st May 2000 9.30pm gmt Latin America's Sad Record. BY JOAQUÍN ORAMAS (Granma International staff writer) Some 80% of Latin America's 224 million poor live in areas of ecological vulnerability, it was reported in a roundtable discussion broadcast on Cuban television and radio. During the roundtable, experts analyzed the information which originated from the Economic Commission for Latin America and The Caribbean (CEPAL). Their report marked the conclusion of the last decade which has seen the highest level of poverty in the region in history. The experts emphasized that in their view, neoliberalism is inviable and that its consequences for society have been terrible. It has meant that while the influence of states has been diminished, economic power has instead passed to the megacorporations based in the industrialized countries. Now they are trying to start a new fashion; the dollarization of poor countries as has already occurred in Argentine and Ecuador. This means a country loses a substantial part of its sovereignty, since it is forced to base its financial policy and therefore its entire economy on what happens with United States reserves. The country's government and parliament are powerless to intervene. Another contributing factor to the growth in the region's poverty is the fact that aggregate industrial production is now only half what it was in 1980. Many nationalized industries have been transformed into privatized companies and this has led to a significant decrease in technical knowledge. The multinationals which now dominate, closed down the majority of the few research and development centers that previously existed and have moved them to their own countries. International commercial relations are characterized by a high level of inequality. While developing countries have been liberalizing their trade, industrialized countries, by way of reply, have increased the levels of protection for their own products. Latin American exporters have thus been placed at a considerable disadvantage, most notably by a big decrease in the prices of their products, whilst industrialized nations spend an annual $362,000 million USD in subsidies for their own agricultural industries. That sum is half of the entire outstanding Latin American foreign debt, it was pointed out. Foreign debt is something which the vast majority of the Latin American population had nothing to do with, but which now weighs heavily upon them as a result of the regular servicing payments and the repayment of the total debt. In general, more than 30% of the income of poor countries goes towards foreign debt repayment. In the case of Honduras and Nicaragua, the amount rises to no less than... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/latinamericassad/latinamericassad.html
