From Volume 37, Issue 48 of EIR Online, Published Dec. 10, 2010
Africa News Digest

Qaddafi Attacks World Bank, IMF, WTO at African-EU Summit

Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi blasted the IMF, World Bank, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the opening of the third African Union-EU summit Nov. 29 in Tripoli, Libya. Qaddafi chaired the conference. He told the European delegates that Africa would opt for other trade partners if the EU continued to impose its austerity conditionalities. "Africa can look to any other international bloc such as Latin America, China, India or Russia," he said.

Qaddafi said, "We do not benefit from the WTO and we call for its abolition. All its interests are in opening our borders for industrial goods and killing national industries in the Third World, so I call [on everybody] not to join it." He called the WTO a tool in the modern version of colonialism, and called for its dissolution.

He also hit the EU for giving precedence to political projects over economic projects, by linking economic aid and cooperation with human rights and good governance. "We are not interested in political power. We want economic development," he said.

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