Economic Terrorism

Dawn recently published my article on 'Economic Terrorism'.
Due to either space constraints or courage constraints, DAWN edited some important parts of the article. Follwing is the link to the published article but i am also posting the complete and unplugged article.

DAWN's Published Article :
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/economic-terrorism-499

Full Article:
ECONOMIC TERRORISM
Andleeb Abbas

Military might is dependent on economic might. Economic might is dependent on control of financial and physical resources in the world. Those who want to run the world affairs to their advantage have to ensure that key strategic resources are in their hold to maintain power. This control and power mania, history has proven often leads to make countries, companies and individuals cross all lines of ethics, values and principles.

As Pakistan goes through its political crisis, its economic dependence on certain nations and institutions will ensure that the plight of its people will get more and more deeper leaving it vulnerable to extremism of all kinds, be it religious, political or economic. The budget has just exposed how bare we are with our economic resources; 51 billion dollars have been borrowed and yet much more needed to cover the revenue deficit. While the government is busy looking at how to convince US to lend more, the major resource earning sectors are still looking for a strategy from the government to help build the internal economy. Most of the industry figures are dismal; Major large scale manufacturing units like the automobile sector declined by 49% in last 11 months while textiles which is the backbone of the economy has declined by 7.6 percent.

With the economy already reeling from high debt we have to raise another 2 billion dollars to rent out power houses to cope with the crippling energy crisis prevailing in the country. Where is all this money going to come from? Is the solution IMF and further loans? Most certainly not; they are institutions which have caused economic terrorism in the world. This is substantiated by research, facts and figures. In a book authored by John Perkins “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” John goes on the uncover the ghastly world of these large American institutions whose main task is to go into countries with precious natural resources, and weak and corrupt governments, indebt them for life and subsequently run and ruin them to suit to their own ends of holding these governments to economic ransom.

Military wars have become difficult as they are decried globally for their disastrous impacts socially and financially. The super powers have discovered another efficient way of destroying and capturing important resources to accumulate power at the expense of millions of people living in these countries. The mechanism to rob these countries is developed under the guise of these mega consulting firms which team up with the aid agencies in the debtor countries to suggest projects of astronomical value especially in the electricity and construction sectors. These projects can only be designed and managed by US companies like Main, Bechtel, Halliburton etc. Thus the public money goes to feed these companies, enriching the US empire and creating economic devastation in the client countries. From Bush senior to Bush junior, and from Robert Mcnamara to Dick Chenney, you will find their names financially linked to these organizations responsible for causing economic terrorism.

These loans are designed to be unreturnable, as normally these countries reach default stage within a few years; then this economic mafia demands their pound of flesh. This pound of flesh is in the form of control over natural resources like oil in case of Iraq and Ecuador, installation of military bases as in Pakistan and the Panama canal in case of Panama.

In Ecuador, of every 100$ of oil drilled 75$ goes to these organizations. Of the 25$ left most of it goes to paying back the debt and government and military expenses. For health and education hardly a couple of dollars are left. Is this not exactly what is happening in our country? The general public of these countries are deprived of basic necessities of survival. All of these people, millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ecuador and in Pakistan are, if not already terrorists, potential terrorists, not because they believe in communism or Islamism but because they are desperate to get rid of these economic terrorists who have deprived them of the freedom of living in their own indigenous world and turned them into economic slaves.

The Economic hitmen target their client countries very carefully. They donot attack all and sundry. The first prerequisite of targeting a country is that it has a strategic resource or location. The second prerequisite is that it has economic problems. But the third and perhaps the most important prerequisite is that these countries have corrupt leadership. Unfortunately Pakistan qualifies very well on these requirements especially the third one. This is very evident in case of Panama where as long as Omar Torrijos was leading Panama, America could not control the Panama canal. As corrupt leaders like Noriega took over, the Americans got control over the canal easily.

The economy is in dire straits. Even with a totally cooked up budget they are unable to balance it and have shamelessly admitted that they will have to beg and borrow to cover up its expenses. With the country facing crippling shortage of power and water, it has become fertile ground for these loans to be used for making huge electricity projects and dams with scant regard to their socio economic and environment impact; the perfect stage for the economic hit men to takeover; and the story goes on…

How can we rewrite this story to change the fate of this country? Well the answer is to become aware of the real reality of the politics and economics of our “friends of Pakistan” and to come out of our comfort zones and work at what ever level we can to prevent us becoming victims of this economic terrorism; This is the hour of developing zero tolerance for deception and for corruption; This is the hour for withstanding the pressure to give in to cynicism and instead start taking the lead to change ourselves and those around us; and this is the hour to not only think and stop, but start and act; history has proven that change never comes from parliaments and white houses, but by a group of ordinary committed people who have the courage and integrity to act upon their convictions and aspirations.

The writer is a consultant and CEO of FranklinCovey and can be reached at andleeb@franklincoveysouthasia.com