Who is Zoellick?

Zoellick at World Bank? from the Institute for Public Accuracy

SAMEER DOSSANI, sameer@50years.org, http://50years.org
Director of 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic
Justice, Dossani said today: "Though I am not surprised that George Bush has
nominated another white male neoconservative to the post of World Bank
president, I am appalled. After the departure in disgrace of Paul Wolfowitz,
the White House had a chance to live up to its own rhetoric and democratize
the process for appointing the World Bank head. Instead they've stuck to the
status quo, business as usual, based on a 60-year-old 'gentleman's
agreement.' The situation is unacceptable and gives the lie to any claim
that the World Bank could ever be an institution for advancing the interests
of countries in the Global South." Dossani is a contributor to the blog
.

TOM BARRY, tom@irc-online.org
Barry is policy director of the International Relations Center, which
features a profile of Zoellick on its web page --
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1397 -- noting that, among other
things, Zoellick was a signatory to the Project for a New American Century
letter to President Clinton on Iraq:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
Barry is author of an analysis of Zoellick's policies when he was U.S.
trade representative: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/862

ASIA RUSSELL, asia@healthgap.org, http://www.healthgap.org
Russell is director of international advocacy for the group Health GAP.
She said today: "During his tenure at U.S. trade representative, Robert
Zoellick was well known among AIDS and public health advocates for lobbying
for trade agreements that were major giveaways to the pharmaceutical
industry. Because of Bob Zoellick's efforts, these agreements will increase
the cost of lifesaving medicines in developing countries. He put drug
companies' interests ahead of the interests of people living with HIV and
other life-threatening diseases. He was on the wrong side of that debate.
"We are very concerned that Zoellick will apply that same flawed,
market-fundamentalist thinking to the major health policy issues that have
made the Bank so ineffective in fighting poverty.
"For example, the World Bank has not been a leader in supporting poor
countries in creating the 'fiscal space' that they need to scale up HIV
treatment and care -- that's the flexibility countries need to increase
budget expenditures in health and increase absorption of international donor
aid. That flexibility is hard to get because the International Monetary Fund
pressures governments not to increase health and education investments, in
the name of ensuring macroeconomic stability.
"It's very difficult to imagine the same Bob Zoellick who carried water
for big pharma being the kind of advocate ministers of health need in order
to expand their investments in salaries for doctors and nurses to address
6,000 preventable AIDS deaths each day in Africa alone."

JESSICA WALKER BEAUMONT, JWalkerBeaumont@afsc.org,
http://www.afsc.org/lifeoverdebt
Trade and debt specialist with the American Friends Service Committee,
Beaumont said today: "The World Bank needs a president with a vision for
breaking out of the one-size-fits-all development model promoted by the
World Bank. As U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick was the architect
of the cookie-cutter approach to U.S. trade policy. He ensuring that the
Central American Free Trade Agreement and other trade pacts were even more
aggressive than the North American Free Trade Agreement in protecting
multinational corporate interests. ...
Zoellick was at the table telling potential trading partners to take it or
leave it as he helped build the coalition of the willing for the Bush trade
agenda."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167