January, 2003

‘WWIII is now raging’ Interview with Jean Ziegler

Interviewed by Sawsan Hussein

Jean Ziegler is a well-known and controversial figure in international circles today. As a writer he has targeted the new world economic order, uncovering its shortcomings and warning of the serious side-effects globalisation will have and the humanitarian disasters it will create.

Currently a professor of social science and economics in the universities of Geneva and the Sorbonne, he has studied in Switzerland, France and the United States, receiving his PhD from the University of Bern in 1967. He has long been interested in the issues of poverty and hunger around the world, throughout which he has travelled extensively, especially focusing on the poor South.

Ziegler was a prominent member of the federal Swiss parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee until June 1991, when his outspoken criticism of the Swiss banking system, and its role in ‘whitewashing’ money stolen from Holocaust victims, caused him to lose his parliamentary immunity. He became the subject of lawsuits brought against him by seven Swiss banks and financial institutions.

In September 2000, he was chosen by the United Nations Human Rights Committee as a rapporteur for the committee on ‘The Right to Nutrition,’ and presented several detailed reports on the problem of hunger in Third World countries.

His controversial arguments were presented in several books which caused an uproar in international circles. Among these books are: The Swiss Whitewash; The Princes of Crime, which argues that globalisation, the fall of communism and the ineptitude of certain states work to the advantage of organised crime which is gradually taking over the world; and Switzerland, Gold and Death, revealing the story of gold stolen by the German intelligence from Holocaust victims and deposited in Swiss banks.

His latest publication, The New Masters of the World, discusses the history of globalisation, the ideologies of the new economic ‘masters’ of the world, their activities and the mercenaries that work for them.

The following are excerpts from the interview:

On International Capitalism and the Process of Globalisation:

I must admit there are advantages to this process [of globalisation]. It allows for massive accumulation of wealth and capital, as well as vitalising the forces and systems of production with admirable creativity. In less than a decade, world production has doubled, world trade has increased threefold, while, on average, the consumption of energy doubles every four years. Mankind today enjoys historically unprecedented prosperity and riches, far beyond the needs of its inhabitants.

WWIII: Hunger in the Third World:

On this riches-laden planet, approximately 100,000 persons die every year from hunger or hunger-related conditions. At present, there are 826 million individuals who suffer serious chronic malnutrition. Thirty-four million of these individuals live in the economically advanced North, while 515 million live in Asia – where they represent 24 per cent of the total population. The hardest hit area is black Africa, where 186 million people, 34 per cent of the total population, chronically suffer from malnutrition. Most of them suffer a condition described by the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation -FAO- as ‘extreme hunger,’ with their daily food intake hardly reaching 300 calories – barely enough to keep them alive.

Hunger, thirst, disease and internal conflicts annually destroy more men, women and children than those victimised by the six-year massacres of WWII. For people in the Third World, WWIII is now raging, claiming every seven minutes the life of one child under 10 as a result of hunger.

Economic Sanctions:

Indiscriminate economic sanctions are a flagrant violation of human rights, denounced by the UN Charter and the Vienna Declaration. The UN General Assembly condemned with a majority of 173 against three, the 10th year running, the US embargo on Cuba.

I personally condemn the Security Council’s approval of the embargo on Iraq, which has had a tragic effect on the Iraqi people. They have suffered from hunger and disease; this embargo is indefensible.

The Role of UN Organisations:

In 1992, under the leadership of then UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, work began on the development of three agendas: the UN agenda for development, the UN agenda for peace, and the UN agenda for democratisation. These documents lay out a clear and bold strategy integrating the work of all UN agencies. Despite Dr. Boutros-Ghali’s clear vision and strong personality, he was unable to implement this strategy and there is a continuing dichotomy within the organisation of the UN.

Many of the UN agencies do a wonderful and successful job. The World Health Organisation has made great achievements in the struggle against epidemic diseases; UNICEF and FAO help out hunger victims; the UN High Commission for Human Rights has developed a strategy against racism, torture and discrimination; the UN High Commission for Refugees daily provides crucial assistance to millions of people across the world…

Yet their accomplishments are overwhelmed by the damage inflicted by the agents of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation… The activities of these organisations are predicated on a very different theoretical framework [to that of the humanitarian UN organisations]… [a framework known as] the Washington consensus, [which] refers to the group of unofficial agreements drawn up by the international financial community, predominantly American, and the Bretton Woods corporation during the 1980s.

This consensus centres around four principles: immediate, complete, maximum liberalisation of the movement of capital, goods, information and technical services protected by international property rights; the privatisation of all public sector economic activities; complete economic stability; and decreasing budgetary deficits. Therein, the aim is a self-regulating worldwide market… that would transcend politics and individual states.

I think that the basic principles developed by Dr. Boutros-Ghali in the three agendas must be brought to replace the Washington consensus as the basis for administrating planet Earth.

Israeli Aggression against the Palestinians:

The policies of colonial repression followed by Ariel Sharon and other Israeli generals are in my opinion criminal and classifiable as crimes against humanity… Sharon’s blind vengeance bears no relationship to the humane and tolerant nature of the founders of the Israeli state, yet it unfortunately enjoys Washington’s blessing and support…

In my opinion, the most pressing task is for the international community to send armed disengagement and peacekeeping forces to Palestine, similar to those in Kosovo and East Timor, to protect the people of Palestine against the massacres of the occupying forces. The next step is to implement without delay the Partition Plan adopted by the UN in 1947, to remove the Israeli settlements and establish guarantees for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland.

The Situation in the Poor South:

The situation is truly tragic. While the rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer at a much faster rate. According to 2002 statistics, 20 per cent of the world’s population controls more than 80 per cent of its resources; they own more than 80 per cent of its cars and consume 60 per cent of its energy resources. More than one billion men, women and children share one per cent of world income. In 81 states, between 1992 and 2002, average individual income fell at such a harrowing rate that average life expectancy in black Africa fell to 47 years, while in Rwanda it fell to 40 years… In one decade, the number of ‘extremely poor’ has risen to approximately 100 million.

The increasing gap between the rich and the poor in the world today is a direct result of the imbalance in the purchasing power between those two groups. This is most apparent in the domain of health care. Although Third World countries are home to more than 85 per cent of the world’s inhabitants, they have only a 25 per cent share of the international pharmaceutical market. While pharmaceutical laboratories developed 1,223 new medications between 1975 and 1996, only 11 of them were to cure tropical diseases.

Hunger and Malnutrition as a Man-made Phenomenon:

Experienced on the individual level, the suffering of the hungry today is no different than it was in the 1950s. While it is possible for an adult who has temporarily suffered from severe malnutrition to recover, given careful medical care, for a child under five the brain cells deprived of proper nourishment are irreparably damaged…

[This] occurs on a planet which, in fact, groaning with riches as the result of agricultural development, can provide food for 12 billion people. It can provide each of them with food intake of 2,700 calories a day, according to calculations in the FAO report for 2000. There are only slightly more than 6 billion of us inhabiting this earth, yet 826 million starve or suffer severe malnutrition. The equation is overly simple: those who have money eat and survive; those who don’t, suffer, become incapacitated, or die.

Pervasive and acute malnutrition are man-made. People who die of hunger are victims of murder. Those who live and those who die are decided by the investment strategies and political alliances of the czars of world capitalism.

The Second World Social Forum and Anti-Globalisation:

More than 60,000 men and women belonging to more than 2,000 social movements from five continents arrived in Brazil in 2002 to attend the Second World Social Forum at Porto Alegre. They called for abolishing the IMF, WTO,… independent central banks… and the unconditional cancellation of all Third World foreign debts.

They demanded public scrutiny of corporate mergers, a UN security council for economic and social affairs, and the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights into legislation... [The capitalist order] quickly rises to the defence if any part of the system is threatened or opposed, as was the case in the Summit of Eight in June 2001 and the conference of Porto Alegre in 2002.

[The] strong, even the mercenaries [of this system], fight tooth and nail to protect the privatisation which brings them such immense privilege and legendary wealth. The world capitalist system is also supported by the pervasive corruption in ruling governments, especially in the Third World…

Nevertheless, there is a new civil society that is bonding and gradually emerging from the ruins of the status quo. This society is vehemently opposed to the IMF, World Bank and WTO, and it is organising forces to fight these oppressive systems. This gives us new hope.