John Perkins ECONOMIC HITMAN They are a select group of corporate officers who travel the Third World and hobnob with heads of state. Their job is to convince the governments of poor nations to build expensive new power plants, shipping ports, and industrial parks using borrowed funds. They call themselves "economic hit men", and they destroy their targets not with bullets, but with dollars. John Perkins was once one of them. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Berrett-Koehler) he tells how the system worked - and still works today : He and his fellow economic hit men befriended Third World leaders and convinced them, often using bribery or deceit, to take on enormous debts to develop their national infrastructure. U.S. corporations profited from the development contracts, and the World Bank - sourf of the majority of the loans - profited from the interest. The only ones who didn't profit were the Third World nations themselves, who found they were unable to pay back the money they owed. Who are "economic hit men", and what do they do ? The term "economic hit men", as people using it today, refers to a group of men - and women - who are highly paid professionals working for multinational corporations like Monsanto, Nike, General Electric, Wal-Mart, and many other familiar names. Right now the most prominent of these companies are Halliburton and Bechtel, with their work in Iraq. What these companies and the economic hit men who work for them do is not illegal, for the most part ; it should be, but they - we - write the international laws and make these act legal. I've been out of this business for quite a long time, so I can speak only to my experiences in the 1970s at MAIN, not specifically to current activities by the companies I've just mentioned. The goal of the economic hit men is to cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars for the sake o corporate profits. Their job, you could say, is to create a global empire, and they've done just that. Not only does the U.S. control world commerce, but we influence world culture : The language of diplomacy and business is English. People all over the planet watch Hollywood movies, eat American fast food, and adopt American styles of clothing. We have no significant competition. How exactly do the economic hit men accomplish this empire-building ? Through many means : exaggerated financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex. The game is as old as empire, but it's taken on terrifying dimensions through the power of globalization. When I was an economic hit man, I travelled around the world and provided "favors" to targeted countries in the form of loans to develop infrastructure - electrical plants, highways, shipping ports, airports, and industrial parks. Of course, all this infrastructure was built by U.S. corporations, so 90 percent of the money never left this country. It was simply transferred from banks in Washington to engineering offices in New York City, or San Francisco, or wherever the corporation was based. What role does the World Bank play in this system ? The World Bank very much supports the U.S. empire-building project. In doing so, it has betrayed its own founding goals. The World Bank was created at the end of World War II to help reconstruct a devastated Europe, and it accomplished its mission, but then it became politicized by U.S. efforts to fight off the Soviet Union. Today its stated mission is still to help countries build and rebuild, and it has plenty of resources, but it's gotten off track. I spoke at a World Bank conference two years ago, and I challenged the attendees to do their jobs instead of serving the interests of the economic hit men. There were many young people in the audience who were receptive to my ideas. They had joined the World Bank because they wanted to make the world a better place. Organizations like the World Bank and corporations like Halliburton are filled with good, capable, dedicated people who are unaware of how they serve the empire-builders. After all, it is easy to hide from the truth : our schools, along with legions of corporate lawyers, psychologists, and economists, constantly tell these people that they are promoting progress - helping, rather than hurting the world's poor. One reason I wrote the book is to encourage these employees to look beneath the surface and become aware of what our policies are really doing. What's wrong with developing infrastructure and bringing electricity to underdeveloped areas ? Nothing is inherently wrong with it. The problem lies in the implementation. Usually these projects are set up to help industries and big businesses in the countries that undertake them, rather than those who really need the help. For example, in Colombia, we built a dam to produce electricity, but there was a great deal of local resistance to the project. Someone closely connected to rebel forces there explained why : the electricity would help only the wealthiest few, and thousands would be adversely affected because the fish and water and general environment would be drastically changed after the dam was built. Aren't these same rebels also connected to drug lords and terrorists ? Yes, and I'm sorry to say that, in a real sense, we pushed them into drug trafficking and terrorism. For if you are a peasant or an indigenous tribesman trying to defend you land against oil companies, lumber companies, or other foreign intruders, the drug trade might well be you only available source of financing. You have to get training and weapons if you want to defend your family against corporate invaders, and you can't turn to Russia or China anymore. Where else can you go for redress and support : The UN ? The World Bank ? As a result, we are pushing people right into the arms of criminal and terrorist organizations. Unfortunately, many poor people around the world see Osama bin Laden as a hero because he stands up to the mighty U.S. extract of The Sun, September 2005 "An Offer They Can't Refuse" John Perkins On His Former Life As An Economic Hit Man, by Pat MacEnulty