Editorials
Monday, January 26, 1998SENTIMENT in Congress is running against providing more money to the International Monetary Fund to bail out East Asia's ailing economies. Legislators from both parties have called for blocking the Clinton administration's request for $20 billion in increased funding. One lawmaker said he planned legislation calling for the U.S. to withdraw from the organization it helped found 53 years ago. This is foolhardy. Washington should aid
ailing Asian economiesThe United States is the largest shareholder in the organization and its 18 percent stake gives it in effect a veto over IMF decisions. Of the $20 billion requested, $16 billion would be for the IMF's regular resources and the rest for an emergency bailout facility to be used in the future.
The resistance is based on the notion that American taxpayers should not be asked to pay for the investment mistakes of banks and speculators. But that's not what this is all about. IMF financial aid costs the taxpayers of the supporting countries little or nothing.
The IMF's deputy managing director, Stanley Fischer, recently pointed out that the IMF isn't a charity. It operates like a credit union, with subscriptions that earn market-rate interest when used in lending programs. Similarly, the $20 billion the United States provided for Mexico in 1995 when its economy took a nose-dive has all been paid back, with interest.
This isn't a giveaway. Rather, it's an investment in world economic stability. Along with the money go austerity measures the IMF imposes that are needed to restore reeling economies and prevent their problems from spreading to other countries -- including the United States. With the world economy increasingly interrelated, that threat is real. Also real is the prospect that the stricken Asian countries might flood the U.S. market with ultra-cheap imports in a desperate effort to stay afloat, which could hurt American companies.
Foreign trade is a vital and growing part of the U.S. economy. People in other countries can't buy American goods and services if their economies have collapsed. Moreover, economic collapse can lead to political upheavals. Lending East Asian governments money to help them get on their feet again -- with appropriate conditions -- is simply good business and good diplomacy.
HOW wrong is the recent sentence handed down by Cherokee County State Court Judge Clyde Gober in the Georgia case involving a man who threatened to kill his girlfriend and their daughter? Let us count the ways. The marrying kind
1) Darrell Meadows, 26, of Kentucky, intimidated Angela Whaley, 28, and their child, Nicole, while visiting friends in Georgia last November. So Judge Gober reduced felony battery and terroristic threatening charges to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, sentencing Meadows to probation and a $1,200 fine, if he got counseling and married Whaley. Married Whaley? Since when are vows of marriage meted out as a punishment?
2) Judge Gober said he chose the unusual sentence so Meadows would have a legal obligation to support his child. But this man had been arrested and hauled into court for vowing to harm both Nicole and Angela. Why legally inflict someone of his character and temperament on them? Will Judge Gober accept responsibility if other incidents of abuse occur after the marriage?
3) This is the ultimate example of the system butting into the personal lives of its citizens when it was neither warranted nor wanted -- although Meadows did agree to the ceremony after initially balking. The couple was married last Saturday.
How do we love thee, justice system in Cherokee County? Let us count the ways. Ummm, none.
THE island of Bougainville, known to Americans mainly for its part in the World War II battles to wrest the Solomons from Japan, has been plagued by warfare for the last decade. Rebels initially took up arms to protest environmental damage caused by a copper mine partly owned by Australian interests, and to wring concessions from the Papua New Guinea government. The mine was shut down as a result of sabotage, but the fighting continued, evolving into a campaign for independence. At least 20,000 people have been killed and 40,000 forced from their homes. Bougainville cease-fire
Now an agreement has been signed, calling for a cease-fire to take effect at midnight April 30. In addition to the cease-fire, the agreement covers reconstruction of damaged facilities on Bougainville but does not deal with its political future. The issue of independence will be handled in the next stage of the peace process, to be held in April.
The agreement calls for troops from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and Vanuatu, who have been on Bougainville since early December, to be withdrawn by April 30, when local police are scheduled to take over. Bougainville residents will be asked to elect a reconciliation government before the end of the year.
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Don McKinnon, who helped broker the agreement over the past six months, said it could only help the island.
Martin Miriori, secretary of the rebel-backed Bougainville Interim Government, called Friday, the day the agreement was signed, the most important day in the island's history. "There is a good degree of understanding among all parties engaged in the peace process," he said.
Bougainville is geographically part of the Solomons, but by an accident of colonial history was separated administratively from the other islands and attached to the German-ruled portion of New Guinea, which later came under Australian administration. It became the nation of Papua New Guinea in 1975. The rest of the Solomons was under British rule until independence in 1978.
Now it appears that Bougainville will gain independence, or at least a degree of autonomy. Its copper and other natural resources could provide the basis for a viable economy -- but only if investors have reason to be confident that the violence of the last decade will not be repeated.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
