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| June 24, 2000 | atimes.com | ||
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China
Word Bank rethinks Tibet project By Gumisai Mutume WASHINGTON - The World Bank is succumbing to pressure to release early a damning internal report on a controversial poverty reduction project in China that seeks to relocate nearly 60,000 Chinese onto Tibetan-occupied land. Bank officials say findings of an inspection panel - an internal watchdog made up of three independent development specialists from Holland, Senegal and Canada - will be released ahead of a board of directors meeting to vote on the China Western Poverty Reduction project on July 7. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), one of the largest pro-Tibetan groups, notes, ''Should the board approve funding for the project, it would mark the first time that China's policy of population transfer has received international funding and approval.'' Pre-empting the release of the panel's report, the World Bank leaked a memorandum from bank President James Wolfensohn recommending that no funds be disbursed until changes are made to allow the project to meet the major concerns raised by the report. The $160 million China Western Poverty Reduction project, which targets almost 1.7 million people, was approved by the Bank last June. The release of the report could not have come at worse time for the Bank. It is currently under fire for lack of transparency and accountability. Wolfensohn has vowed to make the Bank's processes more open and accountable, but the project in Tibet further undermines that effort. In addition, Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile ten years after China invaded the Himalayan theocracy in 1949, is on a 15-day visit to the United Status. The Bank has persistently expressed support for the project despite opposition from two of its main lenders, the United States and Germany. ''This is a grave affront to all of the Members of Congress, parliamentarians and others who have asked you to release the inspection panel report, and who have all been told up until now that it cannot be read until the report is released to management,'' blasts the ICT in a letter addressed to Wolfensohn. A group of 58 parliamentarians have also recently written to Wolfensohn recommending that the report on the Western China Poverty Reduction project ''be made publicly available prior to the World Bank's final vote to allow sufficient public review''. The results of the inspection panel - completed in April - have been kept secret, a move activists say is meant to avoid further public resistance over the report's scathing attack on the Bank's violation of its own policies. The panel was only authorized to consider whether the project has been developed in line with Bank rules. In this department it apparently found the international body wanting, as the Bank had not conducted a full-scale environmental impact assessment. Bank officials had said the report would only be released after the board votes on the project. The Bank had also said it would simultaneously release its management recommendations to the board. However, the leaked Wolfensohn memorandum contains a summary of the Bank's recommendations. These include halting any disbursal of funding. Wolfensohn says aid would be halted until further ''independent studies have been conducted, reviewed, published and found satisfactory to the Bank''. This new process is expected to take another 12 to 15 months. Reacting to stinging criticism, the Bank is to re-categorize the project from a component B to A, which will entail a higher level of environmental analysis. The Bank's management also proposes to upgrade the social assessments of the project with internationally recognized experts - acceptable to the Bank and China - to conduct interviews with the affected people. Their reports will be published in China and in Washington for public review. (Inter Press Service) |
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