53 Rue de l’Amiral Mouchez
75013 Paris
France
MM. President and Government Chief of Countries
Mrs. & MM. Directors and Secretaries General,
Managing Director, & Presidents of Organizations
Paris,
November 1st, 2000
Dear
MM. Presidents and Government Chiefs,
Dear
Mrs. & MM. Directors and Secretaries General, Managing Director, &
Presidents,
Referring
to my different letters of June and November last year and April and June this
year, I would like to clarify one or two points that may not have been well
understood.
But
first, please let me thank Prime Minister Tony Blair for the kind letter sent
by Mr. Philip Barclay, from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the
European Commission for the comment sent by Mr. Daniel Byk, Director at
Eurostat.
The letters of interest and
support for the project or my remarks are very important. They and my role in the proposal force me to
point out important issues that may have an impact on the realization of the
project and on the related fight against poverty, and to discuss the
‘unjustified and unfair’ difficulties I encounter. The project’s (and my difficulties’) relations to the problem of
poverty and peace are multiple even if it may not seem obvious, so the
‘missing’ ‘support’ of the World Bank and the United Nations are becoming
critical.
My suggestions concerning
the resignation of Mr. Wolfensohn and Mr. Annan could easily be understood
incorrectly, so please let me go back to these particular subjects. As you all know, the Internet is not the
only progress in our society. In fact
we have progressed in many other areas like genetics for example. The recent work on the human genome should
help us cure diseases and overall improve people’s life in the future.
It certainly shows that we
understand better how human beings ‘function’, how they are ‘programmed’, and
more generally how ‘life’ works. We
have also made important progress in psychology since we now understand better
how people think, what are their motivations, how they develop throughout their
life, and the interaction between their professional and personal life. In fact, psychologists have established
fairly precise stages of evolution in the career of a manager.
The period from 62 to 67,
for example, is often referred to be the ‘retirement transition phase’. It allows the manager to retire
progressively from ‘activity’. So the
idea of ‘retiring’ ‘on time’ to show more respect for new generations that I
introduced in my last letters, is not the only argument which justifies my
suggestion, even though it is a major one.
For psychologist, a man 66 or 67 years old is not at the best time of
his career and does not offer his ‘maximum’ ‘potential’, he passed what they called
the ‘winter’ period of his career.
The World Bank is a very important organization in the fight against poverty and more generally for the 6 billions people living on earth, so ‘we’ should try to keep its President in its ‘best possible’ career time, if possible. Moreover, one of our critical problems in the fight against poverty is to avoid that the gap between the rich and the poor continues increasing, in fact, we would even like to see this gap decreased significantly, and for this we need to pay careful attention to behaviors that may affect it.
If a ‘rich’ man continues collecting one of the highest public salary in the world after he reaches the retirement ‘limit’ (65), he will become even richer for no real reason, while the poor in some countries don’t even get to live 50 on the average and don’t have the time to save money for their kids, or while, in rich countries, the poor don’t get the chance to use all their years until 65 because many are hit by unemployment. By not respecting the retirement limit for rich civil servants, we simply increase the gab between rich and poor.
So Mr. Wolfensohn’s behavior
should not be encouraged, if we want to succeed in ‘our’ fight against poverty. He is not ‘a’ Mr. Mandela or Mr. Kim Dae-jung who stayed several
years in ‘prison’ and who symbolizes ‘an
unconditional fight for mankind’s progress and survival’, and to whom
it is ‘simply fair’ to give few more ‘effective’ years in activity at the
highest level. Au contraire, Mr.
Wolfensohn represents the persons who have it all (and had it all) and still
use unethically ‘publics affairs’ to increase their wealth or influence.
Mr. Wolfensohn, who was in
his younger years a member of the Australian Olympic fencing team, had a very
successful career in Australia, England and USA. There are nothing wrong with having a successful career, in fact
very bright and talented persons who are/were, like him, involved in cultural
and volunteers activities, should be strongly encouraged and rewarded, but we
must also always keep in mind that there are still 1,2 (not to say 3) billions
people who are given no chance to ‘shine’ and not very much more chance to
simply live.
We can say that Mr.
Wolfensohn was encouraged and rewarded according to his talent since he was
awarded Knighthood by the Queen Elizabeth II, decorated by several Governments,
and was given the Presidency of the World Bank to end up his professional
career. In September 99, he was
unanimously reappointed by the Bank Board of Directors to a second term
although he had passed the limit of 65.
Was it the right decision? I don’t think so, but I understand and
believe we can use this ‘error’ to ‘our’ advantage.
‘We’ want and need to show more and more
respect toward people in general and even more toward older people who have
demonstrated great qualities throughout their lives. If Mr. Wolfensohn had not been reappointed, he could have taken
it as a critic and kept a bitter souvenir of his last assignment although his
only mistake may have been to seek a new term and not to look for 2 or 3
possible successors. There are several
talented men and women who could assume the World Bank’s Presidency.
As last argument, we should
also mention that it is important to think about persons like Mr. D’Alema and
Mr. Moore who leave their place to someone else before the end of their ‘term’
although they are young, talented and experienced. And also think about the many people who worked for the World
Bank or other organizations and who have been ‘encouraged’ to ‘decrease’ their
professional activities before their 65th birthday to live the place
to younger men in a more ‘ascensional’ and ‘productive’ phase of their career.
I could mention several other important arguments and study in more details the real ‘motivation’ of Mr. Wolfensohn but there is not enough place here, and he can easily understand these remarks already, at almost 67 no one can ‘force’ him to stay. If the 1,2 billions people living under 1$ a day (and almost 3 billions living under 2$) knew what I just explained, they would be the first to ask him to resign within 10 days after the reception of this letter and to give a three months notice to the Board to find his successor.
They would also ask him to
explain that he did not mean to take advantage of his position, influence and
age, but that he simply wanted to assure a nice transition after Mr.
Camdessus’s and Mr. Stiglitz’s departure, and that now that both Mr. Köhler and
Mr. Stern are fully ‘operational’, he can let a younger man or woman managed
the World Bank. Finally, that he wants
to express again his dedication to the fight against poverty, and that he will
continue ‘following’ and
supporting the work of International Organizations in this area.
Concerning Mr. Annan, the
suggestion is not so obvious. Mr.
Annan, a native of Ghana, represents the ‘developing world’ and even more
particularly the countries of sub-Saharan Africa who are devastated by AIDS,
conflicts and poverty. We understand
that these difficulties create distress and humiliation for the inhabitants of
this region, and that to see ‘one of them’ as the Secretary-General of the UN
is not only a ‘pride’, but also a sort of assurance that the International
Community cares about their difficult problems.
So Mr. Annan’s legitimacy
does not come only from his intellectual and professional abilities, but also
from an ‘ethical and geographical unsaid reason’. But the situation of the world has changed in the past two years,
and Mr. Annan’s speech and ideas associated to the report on Rwanda is not the
only argument justifying my suggestion, even if it remains the major one
because it is very important that the UN Secretariat and Secretary-General has
a strong feeling of responsibility toward such a terrible event.
The debt relief initiative
of rich countries and several civil society initiatives gave new ‘assurances’
about the ‘objectives’ of rich countries.
And, the evolution of information technology, with the increasing role
of the Internet in our society and institutions, is in some way changing the
‘geographical rules’. The assurance
given by the presence of Mr. Annan at the post of Secretary-General is not as
necessary as it was before, and the support of some countries could perhaps be
more easily and efficiently obtain with a different person.
Moreover, the UN
Secretary-General has an important ‘coordination’ role, not only to fight
poverty, but also to maintain peace in the world. Since G7 countries have engaged a vast operation to reduce the
debt, and the permanent members of UN Security Council reassured their will to
maintain peace, the coordination efforts would probably be more efficient if it
was a man native of these countries or the intersection of these two subsets of
countries that managed the UN Secretariat, at the exception of France, of
course.
Finally, the Internet will
play a key role in development, and a UN Secretary-General with some experience
at the national level in this matter would ‘be an advantage’. As you see, my suggestion concerning the
resignation of Mr. Annan is based on finer intellectual nuances which can be
more easily contradict. But still, they
should be studied carefully because 6 billions persons are concerned, and
particularly 1,2 billions of very poor.
However, his silence on the
project or my remarks is not professional because several countries took the
time to respond to and comment the proposal or remarks, even the Prime Minister
of Italy and England bothered to write me.
Does Mr. Annan think he is ‘above’ the leader of these 2 countries or
any others to refuse to answer? Is it
because he does not care at all about the experts’ point view? Or is it because he does not want that a
poor benefits from his work on such an important project?
Whatever his reasons may be,
I believe it is detrimental to the very poor he is supposed to defend. First, because the project is good for
everyone on earth, particularly the poor, and his silence slows down its
realization. Second, it shows that Mr.
Annan would not move a ‘finger’ to help a poor of a rich country, and if it is
so, why should rich countries speed up their debt relief initiative to help
faster the poor of poor countries. And
finally, if the UN Secretariat does not give a job to a poor who brings so many
letters of support of this kind, who will.
As you see, my suggestions
are backed up by logical or scientific arguments, but I tried to justify them
by ‘noble and useful’ causes. If we
want to defeat poverty, we must not just improve our institutions (organizations,
laws, systems,…), we must also improve our behavior. Since the time is a key element to defeat poverty and I made my
suggestions and proposal to help others also, Mr. Wolfensohn and Mr. Annan
should have responded rapidly and ‘helped’ ‘us’, in one way or the other,
instead of letting ‘me’ ‘pay’ for my work and comments.
Concerning my remarks about
France, I would like to use again the example of Yugoslavia. Before the recent election in Yugoslavia,
the European Union promised the people of Yugoslavia to stop the embargo if
they elected someone else than Mr. Milosevic.
Meaning, they offered the Yugoslavian an important financial help to get
rid of their leader. Usually, we call that ‘blackmail’. After the result came out, some said it was
a victory of democracy, and, of course, others said it was a victory of
‘blackmail’ or propaganda.
The reality is perhaps
somewhere in the middle. Democracy
would be a better system if every person who votes had the same level of
information and the same level of education to understand the information. But, of course, this is not the case
although ‘we’ worked hard to reduce this double gap between ‘voters’. The ‘blackmail’ can be interpreted as an
attempt to ‘correct’ the lack of information of certain Yugoslavians about the
massacres in Bosnia or Kosovo and about the effort of the International
Community to fight poverty worldwide.
In France, it is the same,
not everyone is informed about the problems I mentioned. So I explained you our difficulties, and
asked you not to do a ‘blackmail’ but to show our politicians some of their
mistakes by giving them a ‘good’ example.
France is giving its share in the debt relief initiative, it is the
French people who pay, not Mr. Chirac or Mr. Jospin, so France also deserves
that the world pays a little bit of attention to its problems. And, of course, it is to your benefit too
(see attachment 1).
I would like to finish this
letter by mentioning the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian. The entire International Community condemned
the violence and we can easily understand why.
But if ‘we’ condemn violence as a mean to complain when the situation is
difficult or insupportable, ‘we’ have to
give other efficient ways to complain.
Justice is one way, but it is still imperfect, far from being a
universal concept, and almost not for the poor (see att. 1). And
‘we’ also have to be ‘more responsive’ to complaints, particularly when
they are based on logical and scientific arguments and coming from the poor.
‘Dialog’ does not ‘mean’ the
same for everyone. At this time, for
the rich, longer is the ‘dialog’, richer they become, while for the poor,
longer is the ‘dialog’, poorer they become, and too often closer to death they
get also. Everything in our society
becomes more and more precise because we have more and more knowledge on
everything. If ‘we’ overlook just a
simple detail, the overall result may be a disaster. The problems I discussed may seem small details but they are very
important (see confirmations in att. 1, if necessary).
I made the effort to obtain
a job with dignity, many of you think that my ‘work’ was valuable, and were
kind enough to write it. To reject my
job application and to refuse to comment the proposal do not just hurt me, it
also has negative effects on import problems.
Since I ‘criticized’ Mr. Wolfensohn and Mr. Annan, they should be
‘supporting’ my remarks, but if they don’t understand, someone else can do
it. Poverty is not a contagious
disease, to give a ‘fair’ job or dispense ‘fair’ justice to a poor is not a
crime, don’t ‘let it be’. I
remain
Yours
sincerely,
Pierre
Genevier
Recipients list:
Mr.
Bill Clinton, President of the United States
Mr.
Vladimir Poutine, President of the Russian Federation
Mr.
Yoshiro Mori, Prime Minister of Japan
Mr.
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancelor
Mr. Giuliano Amato, Prime
Minister of Italy
Mr. Tony Blair, Prime
Minister of England
Mr.
Jean Chrétien, Prime Minister of Canada
Mr.
Donald J. Johnston, Secretary-General of OECD
Dr.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General, WHO
Mr.
Horst Köhler, Managing Director, IMF
Mr.
Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO
Mr.
Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission
Mr.
Kofi Annan, Mr. James D. Wolfensohn
Mr.
Youri F. Yarov, Executive-Secretary of CIS
Dr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General,
FAO
Mr. Carlos Magarinos,
Director-General, UNIDO
Mr. Mike Moore,
Director-General, WTO
Mr. Juan Somavia,
Director-General, ILO
Copy: Mr. Harri
Holkeri , President of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Dr.
Makarim Wibisono, President of ECOSOC
Attachments:
Documents concerning my trial and the remarks on France (att.1),
documents concerning the proposal and my job application (att. 2).
PS.: For some,
I will drop the letter at your Embassy in Paris, for the others, I will use the post, but please forward the letter
in case someone does not receive it.