122/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
from UN Secretary General U Thant to then World Bank President
George Woods, was unheeded.
It was McNamara who Insisted that the Bank provide credit to the
brutal Indonesian dictatorship established In the wake of the 1965
massacre of more than 500,000 communists (McNamara, 1973).
Following McNamara's departure, the Bank pursued the same
policy, In line with US foreign policy.
Another UN Institution, the UNDP, also has a thing or two to say
about US and World Bank support for dictators:
In fact, aid provided by the USA In the 1980s Is Inversely propor
tional to respect for human rights. Nor have multilateral donors
[the World Bank and the IMF] seemed to be overly concerned with
such considerations [democracy]. Indeed, they seem to prefer
authoritarian regimes, they argue without batting an eyelid that
such regimes promote political stability and are better able to
manage the economy. When Bangladesh and the Philippines
ended martial law, their respective share In overall World Bank
loans fell. (UNDP, 1994)World Bank Power Surges during Robert McNamara's
Stewardship
In 1968, Robert McNamara said: 'The only limitation on the
activities of the World Bank would be the ability of member-countries
to use our assistance In an efficient way and to pay back our loans
according to the terms and conditions that we determine'
(McNamara, 1973).
In 1969, he said: 'The International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development Is a body that makes Investments whose objective Is
development, It Is neither a philanthropic Institution nor a social
welfare agency' (McNamara, 1973).
The Bank's activities grew In number In the 1960s and particu
larly In the 1970s. From 1968 to 1981, under McNamara (US
Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War), the World Bank was
engaged In a lending frenzy. McNamara made It clear that the career
prospects of loan officers were directly linked to the number of
projects In their portfolio.
The bigger a project, the greater the likelihood of receiving Bank
financing (George and Sabelll, 1994; Rich, 1994). This quantitative