New Imperialists : Ideologies of Empire

CAMMACK: U.N. Imperialism 251
mobilization of the U.N. system behind the proposed programme to
which Annan’s Road Map referred. It illustrates further the core strategy
in the development and legitimization of the new imperialist project
noted above in relation to Unleashing Development and Investing in
Development – the production by a carefully assembled team of “experts”
of an arm’s length “independent” commissioned report pre-set to deliver
a message scripted in advance. As stated in the press release that
announced the formation of the panel, it was a response to the U.N.
Millennium Declaration and its development and poverty eradication
goals. It was noted that the 2002 Financing for Development meeting to
which it would make its recommendations was “mandated by the U.N.
General Assembly to involve the active collaboration of the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, as
well as representatives of civil society and the private sector,” and
endorsed in the Millennium Declaration, and within these tightly
defined parameters the panel was charged with advising the Secretary-
General on “measures he can recommend to fulfill the finance needs of
the world’s developing countries.” 42 Its membership, also announced in
the press release, reflected the strategy of engaging developed and developing
countries, “civil society” (business), and N.G.O.’s: it comprised
Abdulatif Al-Hammad, the President of the Arab Fund for Economic
Development; David Bryer, the Director of Oxfam; Mary Chinery-Hess,
former Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization
(I.L.O.); Jacques Delors, former Finance Minister of France and
President of the European Commission; Rebeca Grynspan, former
Vice-President of Costa Rica; Majid Osman, former Finance Minister
of Mozambique, turned commercial banker; Robert Rubin, former
Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under Clinton and architect of the “rescue”
of Mexico in 1994; and Manmohan Singh, former Indian Minister of
Finance, and architect then and since of India’s neoliberal reforms.
The March 2002 conference to which it duly reported, the First International
Conference on Financing for Development, culminated in the
adoption of the “Monterrey Consensus,” the founding public document
of the new imperialist project. The proponents of the conference were
absolutely clear about the character of this intervention in the global
political economy, the innovation which it represented, and the key
actors involved. It is still advertised on the home page of the Conference
as the “first United Nations-hosted conference to address key financial