U.N. High Level Panel on Financing Development
Monterey, Mexico
March 18-22, 2002
Reports from
By Cathie Adams
president of Texas Eagle Forum
On the Way to Johannesburg and Global Taxation
March 23, 2002
The International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, is over. The greatest concern during the meeting was that the United Nations (U.N.) would adopt a global taxing scheme, which did not materialize although it was indeed discussed. In typical U.N. fashion, such a move will be incremental.
The first step along the way to global taxation was for rich and poor nations to agree upon development goals requiring new funding, which was done at the 2000 Millennium Summit. In Monterrey, nations reached "consensus" on increasing foreign aid funding, forgiving Third World debts and replacing future loans with grants in order to meet the Millennium Summit's Development Goals.
Although the U.N. wanted rich nations to agree to grant 0.7% of their Gross National Product (GNP) to poor nations in order to pay for the development goals, the U.S. stopped short. As a matter of fact, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte made it clear on the opening day of the Monterrey conference that the U.S. rejected the idea.
The European Union (EU) has already adopted the 0.7% GNP foreign aid goal and tried to badger Americans while in Monterrey to adopt their aims by nagging about "equity." French President Jacques Chirac went a step further adding that nations "need to ponder more deeply the possibilities of international taxation." The EU hopes that America will eventually agree with the socialist notion that uniting the global economy through global taxation would bring peace to the world.
Adopting the 0.7% GNP foreign aid goal could rob America's federal coffers of funds needed to pay for our own national interests. At that point, global taxation could appeal to politicians charged with finding new money. Of course, like the political vices of regulation and fees, the proposed tax on international monetary transactions, called the Tobin tax, would be a hidden tax on American taxpayers that would fund the U.N..
While America must be careful to avoid accommodating the redistribution schemes of our socialist allies, President Bush did commit to ask Congress for a $5 billion annual increase over current foreign aid levels. He also proposed giving more aid in the form of grants rather than loans.
Bush also spoke about focusing on "results achieved" rather than "resources spent," and he directed Secretary of State Colin Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to come up with standards in order to measure them. When asked how the U.S. would measure the new standards, Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, responded that the U.S. already has 90 field missions. America must be careful to avoid paving the way for a U.N. monitoring system under the guise of achieving results.
The U.N. has completed the first two conferences of a three-part series intended to create its independent funding source: a global tax, which would jettison the U.N. into global governance, their ultimate goal. America has cooperated in the first two steps; we must be on the lookout for snares along the way to Johannesburg, as well as for ambushes that surely await us in South Africa.
Excited Executives at the U.N., World Bank, IMF and WTO
March 22, 2002
Goals set at the 2000 Millennium Summit led to the United Nations (U.N.) meeting on Financing for Development taking place in Monterrey, Mexico. Its aim is to find new sources of "development" to pay for the goals set at the 2000 summit. For the first time in a U.N. forum, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are meeting to fund these goals and they could not be happier.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn was giddy during a press conference Thursday saying, "The first check is always the best check. What we have seen from the U.S. [when President Bush proposed the increase in foreign aid by 15%] is the first check." Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO was excited too saying, "The reason we are here is because of the Millennium Goals. This is simply fulfilling those goals." Managing Director Horst Kohler of the IMF added that they have defined global governance and that policies to define it are under way. These international finance leaders clearly understand the U.N. plans for global governance and are pleased by the progress being made in Monterrey.
Even though the U.N. claims that global governance is not the same as global government, there are no discernible differences. Like a government, the U.N. has an executive branch, a legislative branch and this summer it expects its International Criminal Court (ICC) to come into being that will constitute its judicial branch.
U.N. "executive branch" bureaucrats are not elected; they are appointed, which is a critical disparity from what Americans hold dear in our constitutional republic. As for a law making "legislative branch," their continuum of major conferences has created a multitude of treaties that are commonly used in international law. The "judicial branch" is most onerous to Americans because whether our U.S. Senate ratifies the ICC or not, every citizen will come under its purview.
The U.N. needs one more thing to become a sovereign government: the authority to tax. That is what the U.N. plans to accomplish through a series of three major conferences: the 2000 Millennium Summit, the ongoing meeting on Financing for Development and the upcoming Sustainable Development event in August.
I have watched the U.N. since 1995 move nations inch-by-inch toward accepting global governance by manipulating human greed and pitting poor nations against rich nations. After enticing them to adopt U.N.-prescribed "rights," they set themselves up as the guarantors of these new "rights" convincing the Third World that the only way they can prosper is for rich nations to redistribute their wealth to them.
Rich nations have been manipulated too, and several factors have aided their quest for taxing authority. Most recently President Bush joined his predecessor former President Clinton to support the 2000 Millennium Declaration development goals that sets out seven goals that demand even more funding for the U.N. and for poor nations.
The first goal of the Millennium Declaration, for example, is to "halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015." Even if the proportion is halved by 2015, there will still be 900 million people living in extreme poverty in the developing world according to the U.N. Development Program's new data released 18 March 2002, so it is an unrealistic goal. Furthermore, America's own recent history proved that declaring war on poverty was a utopian dream that caused more problems than it solved. It is wrong to think that a war against poverty could be won on a global level, but it sure could accomplish a lot for global governance.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a group in Monterrey that it would take $54 billion to meet the Millennium Declaration Goals, but obviously the real issue is not meeting those goals. Developing more and independent funding for the U.N., creating the infrastructure for the redistribution of wealth and establishing global government are the real issues.
His callous comment about America's September 11 tragedy further unmasks the U.N. aim: "The fact that we are all here makes it apparent that all of the focus is not on terrorism.... In five months we go to Johannesburg [for the third meeting in a series aimed at increasing foreign aid commitments and establishing independent funding sources for the U.N.]." It seems that nothing can deter Annan or the U.N. from global governance.
The U.N. has enticed both rich and poor nations to Monterrey to make progress toward global governance. President Bush is to addresses the U.N. meeting on Friday. Maybe he will tell us why the heads of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and United Nations are so excited. I'll keep you posted.
Scheme to "Free the Entire Human Race From Want"
March 19, 2002
United Nations meetings reveal their resolute and systematic objectives as expressed by U.N. Development Program (UNDP) administrator Mark Malloch Brown, who claims that the International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) taking place this week in Monterrey, Mexico, is a critical step in a "three-conference story line." According to Brown, the first conference in the "three-conference story line" was the 2000 Millennium Assembly, followed by this Monterrey conference and the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in August.
The U.N. General Assembly mandated this meeting directing the International Monetary Fund, the Word Bank and the World Trade Organization with the objective of finding the money to execute the Millennium Development Goals that 147 heads of state and 191 nations adopted in their Millennium Declaration (www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm). President Bush says he supports the international development goals and the U.N. Millennium Declaration. (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/print/20020314-7.html)
Heading this conference as well as the upcoming summit in Johannesburg is U.N. Under Secretary-General for Sustainable Development Nitin Desai who claims, "Johannesburg will deal with the actual "how-to's" of development rather than the financing behind it." In other words, "consensus" was reached before the 58 heads of state and 5000 delegates traveled to Mexico. While the U.N. is calling upon the "rich" nations to ante up the money to execute the Millennium Development Goals, the "poor" nations view this conference as a means to debt relief, and furthermore as proclaimed by one delegate during the opening plenary on Monday, "to free the entire human race from want."
A myriad of ways to "milk" funding from the "rich" nations are being discussed in several closed-door meetings. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called upon "rich" nations to double their annual "official development assistance" (ODA), a.k.a. foreign aide, from $50 to $100 billion within two to three years.
President Bush in a speech last week to the Inter-American Development Bank meeting in Washington, DC announced a $5 billion increase (15%) in foreign aide over the next three years, as well as, the creation of a "Millennium Challenge" account. He is to address the conference in Monterrey on Friday.
The U.N. in 1970 adopted the most hotly debated funding scheme being discussed, which is for nations to contribute 0,7 percent of their Gross Domestic Product to foreign aide. If adopted, America's foreign aid spending would skyrocket from $12 billion a year to more than $70 billion. Although it is unlikely to be added to the Monterrey "consensus," UNDP chief Brown enthused, "This is the first time that we can see some real movement. I can see governments coming around in time [to the 0.7 percent of the GDP goal]." America's annual trade amounting to between $450-500 billion annually with developing countries is not part of the U.N. equation.
Another idea being discussed in Monterrey is tax harmonization so that high-tax nations could impose their tax laws on income earned in countries with lower tax rates. In order to release the U.N. from the will of sovereign government dues-paying, a global taxing scheme is being considered as well. Impositions of a carbon tax for burning fossil fuels, a tax on international monetary transactions, and a tax on sea-lanes and international airspace are on the bargaining table.
If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then the development of such comprehensive funding schemes for the U.N. will indeed impact our national sovereignty and individual freedoms.