Flavia Dzodan: The IMF has too long defined our southern lives

The IMF has too long defined our southern lives
Argentinians are familiar with rape metaphors being used for IMF policies. With Dominique Strauss-Kahn, we have come full circle

Flavia Dzodan
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 May 2011


The International Monetary Fund is in the public eye, and not solely because of Dominique Strauss-Kahn – the institution is also undergoing media scrutiny for having the type of office culture that, according to employees, seems to be tarnished with harassment. But for all the talk about the IMF and its former director, few people in the west seem to know much about how the IMF actually operates in the countries where it holds (or used to hold, until popular rebellions made the situation unsustainable) a very tight grip.

As an Argentinian, I cannot remember ever not knowing the intricacies of how the IMF operates in our region. We all know, or have been victims ourselves, of the policies it imposes to approve a new line of credit, accept delayed payments, or renegotiate interest rates for our national debts. The visit of an IMF delegate can be the subject of headlines for weeks, months even. After all, a negative rating can bring down governments.

The story of my life is entangled with its interventions. Take my father. On his deathbed, he was still worried about possible fluctuations in dollar exchange rates as a result of IMF demands that would further deplete whatever little we had left at that point.

My uncle. He declared bankruptcy and closed down his 30-year-old business because he could no longer compete with low-cost manufacturing countries due to the IMF's imposition of dollar parity and unrestricted import policies. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/25/imf-argentinian-dominique-strauss-kahn

That is what American military superiority is for, after all.