IMF Loans to Ukraine: Deadly “Economic Medicine” Aimed at Total Destabilization
By Ernst Wolff
Global Research, February 17, 2015
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On February 12, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, announced that the IMF had reached an agreement with the Ukrainian government on a new economic reform program. Ms Lagarde’s statement, made in Brussels, came only minutes after peace negotiations between the heads of the German, French, Russian und Ukrainian governments in Minsk, Belarus, had ended. The timing was no coincidence. Washington had been left out of the negotiations and now reacted by sending its most powerful financial organization to the forefront in order to deliver a clear message to the world: that the US will not loosen its grip on the Ukraine, if not by sending weapons, then at least economically and financially.
Mme Lagarde’s assertions that the program „would support immediate economic stabilization“ and spell „a turning point for the Ukraine“ are as far removed from reality as the main stream media’s depiction of the IMF as an aid organization helping a drowning country to survive in times of trouble. Not a single cent of the loans will go to the Ukrainian working people. Instead, the money will be used to prop up the Yatseniuk government which is totally subservient to US interests, and enable it to service the debts incurred by its predecessors in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, to pay off most of its military expenses of around $ 250 million per month for the continuation of a war against its own population and to fill at least some holes in the state budget which are due to the country’s ongoing economic deterioration.
The loans will be based on the terms of an economic program for Ukraine for 2015 – 2020, passed by the Kiev parliament in December 2014, and are tied to harsh conditions laid down in a letter of intent, signed by prime minister Yatseniuk and president Poroshenko in August 2014. Some of the measures have already been implemented, others will follow. Among those already in force is the flexible exchange rate regime which has not only led to a 67% devaluation of the hrivna, lowering the average monthly wage of Ukrainian workers to less than $ 60, but has also opened the doors for international currency speculators who have already made millions by indebting themselves in hrivnia and repaying their debts in euros and dollars.
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