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Editorials
Monday, January 24, 2000Facing the harsh
realities of povertyONE of the main themes of the protesters at the recent World Trade Organization conference in Seattle was the need to fight exploitation of labor in poor countries by multinational corporations.The issue: Demonstrators at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle demanded higher labor standards for employment in poor countries.
But the protesters had it wrong. Such exploitation -- low wages, long hours and substandard working conditions, at least by the standards of the developed world -- is made possible by poverty.
The way to end exploitation and poverty is to strengthen the economy by providing jobs so workers have better choices.
Encouragement of foreign investment and trade is a way to strengthen the economy over time, even though the jobs that are provided may be considered exploitive. The alternative to these jobs in many cases is no job at all or jobs under even worse conditions.
The dilemma is spelled out in the particularly unfortunate instance of child labor in an article in the Los Angeles Times by Dr. Rana Jawad Asghar, a research associate at Stanford University. Asghar, who says he lived in Pakistan for more than 30 years, cited reports of the sexual molestation and murder of more than 100 Pakistani boys by a serial killer in Lahore.
The victims, he says, came from poor families. Many were runaways who were forced to work in places where they were abused -- evidently not in export-oriented factories but in local workshops or domestic service.
Asghar contends that the attempt to eliminate child labor in export operations is "another example of how our actions sometimes hurt the very people we intend to help."
He noted that President Clinton, in his speech before the WTO, boasted that its policies have removed 7,000 Pakistani children from factories making softballs for export.
Clinton claimed the children had gone back to school, but Asghar is skeptical. On the basis of his experiences he estimated that fewer than 10 percent returned to school. He says, "Children's rights activists are successful in removing these kids from factories -- where they may have higher salaries, better working environments and a chance to learn higher skills -- and pushing them into a bleak future."
IN other words, they were better off in the factories, harsh as the conditions there may have been by Western standards. "Poverty," Asghar asserts, "is more dangerous for these kids than working in a Nike factory."
In the poor countries, demands that employers meet Western working standards are unrealistic.
The only result is to protect the jobs of higher-paid workers in the industrialized countries. The protesters may have satisfied their consciences but the poor are left in their misery.
Israeli gift scandal
LAST October Israeli police raided the home and office of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They seized dozens of expensive items he was suspected of keeping illegally after he was voted out of office in May.
Police examined the items to determine whether any were gifts that had been presented to Netanyahu by foreign dignitaries; such gifts are considered the property of the state. A lawyer for Netanyahu and his wife said they had been in the process of going through the items to determine which had been gifts.
No charges have resulted from that investigation as yet, but now another prominent political figure, President Ezer Weizman, seems to be in more trouble than Netanyahu was.
The police have opened a criminal investigation into his relationship with a French millionaire. There have been calls for Weizman's resignation.
Weizman, 75, had a shining reputation until the current scandal as a war hero who became an advocate of peace and as a champion of the poor. The position of president in Israel is largely ceremonial but Weizman commanded a degree of influence that transcended the duties of his office.
Israel's attorney general ordered a formal police investigation of the president, citing newly found evidence of business links between Weizman and the millionaire that suggested the gifts might be bribes.
A newspaper expose had charged that Weizman accepted nearly a half-million dollars in gifts from Eduoard Sarousi between 1988 and 1993.
Weizman has admitted he received at least $200,000 in gifts from Saroussi but denied acting improperly. He became president in 1993 and has three years left in his second five-year term.
Weizman has refused to resign and denied using his position for personal benefit. But it seemed likely that in the end he would be forced to step down. In a statement last week, Prime Minister Ehud Barak stopped just short of asking Weizman to quit.
The Israeli scandal follows the admission of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that he accepted at least $1 million in illegal contributions for his Christian Democratic Party in the 1990s.
Kohl has denied that the donations were tied to political favors, but refuses to reveal the names of the donors, thus keeping alive suspicion of bribery.
As the longest-serving German chancellor since Bismarck and the architect of German reunification, Kohl has played a much larger role than Weizman, which makes his disgrace more spectacular. The wonder is that figures of such stature can be so deficient in ethics and judgment.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert 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
