Documents menu

/** labr.global: 405.0 **/
** Topic: African SAP Programs Under Attack At ICFTU Conference **
** Written 8:07 PM May 16, 1997 by labornews in cdp:labr.global **
From: Institute for Global Communications <labornews@igc.apc.org>
Subject: African SAP Programs Under Attack At ICFTU Conference

What happened to the democratisation dividend?

By Luc Demaret, ICFTU OnLine,
14 May 1997

THE AFRICAN TRADE UNION MOVEMENT, THE ONLY REMAINING HOPE FOR A CONTINENT CONSIGNED TO THE INTENSIVE CARE WARD, IS HOLDING A SUMMIT IN DAKAR FROM MAY 15 TO 17. THE BACKGROUND TO ITS DISCUSSIONS: THE PERVERSE EFFECTS OF ADJUSTMENT.

Brussels, May 14, 1997 (ICFTU OnLine): Structural adjustment is likely to dominate discussions when the trade union leaders of 50 African countries meet in Dakar from May 15. The Congress of the ICFTU's African Regional Organisation, AFRO, which is to be opened tomorrow by Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, promises to be highly critical of the measures recommended, others would say imposed, in Africa by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. A document submitted to the preparatory meeting of the AFRO congress stresses that the stabilisation measures prescribed by the two Bretton Woods institutions have had an "immediate and dramatic" effect on whole sections of the African population owing to the dismantling of the public sector, the closure of many enterprises, and the deterioration of education and health services. As AFRO bluntly states, "unemployment has risen by an estimated 10% per year and more than two thirds of the African population live below the poverty line". In a memorandum addressed to the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington on April 28 and 29, the ICFTU deplored the fact that in the adjustment programmes, which must be applied if countries wish to benefit from the new scheme to assist the heavily indebted countries, "the social dimension is still lacking, and private sector development is emphasised to the detriment of other alternatives".

Unless there is a last minute change, the aid programme to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), the famous initiative launched with great pomp and circumstance by the financial institutions, remains minimalist. "It risks only providing as little debt reduction as possible to as few countries as possible as late as possible" notes the ICFTU, which has asked that all the 41 HIPCs, the majority of whom are in Africa, should benefit from the scheme, on the condition that they respect fundamental human rights.

Which points to another of the perverse effects of the adjustment programmes to be highlighted by the African trade unionists meeting in Dakar. Making no effort to seek a consensus within civil society, a growing number of governments are forcing the pace of stabilisation and do not shrink from stifling any expression of discontent. In the North, the Moroccan Labour Union (UMT) recently warned of a "dangerous deterioration in the social climate", pointing to the dismissal in 1996 of a total of 1,200 trade unionists and the increasingly violent repression of strikes. In the South, the government of Swaziland preferred to imprison the four leaders of the national trade union centre, the SFTU, rather than enter into dialogue with them on their 27-point list of demands. Although the leaders were released, largely thanks to the visit of an ICFTU and AFRO delegation, the Swazi monarchy still obstinately refuses to introduce any democratic reforms. In Niger, twenty trade unionists, including the deputy leader of the national centre, the USTN, were arrested in February and March for organising civil service strikes. Thanks to the adjustment programme, most had not been paid their salary for several months. In Malawi, six trade union leaders were arrested on April 23, bringing to 20 the number of trade uninists imprisoned since the beginning of the civil service strike on April 7. Add to this the assassination, by Islamic fundamentalists, of Abdelhak Benhamouda, General Secretary of the General Workers' Union of Algeria (UGTA), on January 28, and the serious violations of human rights in Nigeria, Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, and it becomes clear that the conference delegates will have their work cut out for them in Dakar. And they will make sure to underline the vital role they have played in the process of democratising the continent, begun at the start of the nineties. A slow process whose dividends are dangerously slow in making themselves felt.