Word: manley
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...Manley demonstrated equal ambition in his foreign policy. Jamaica chaired the Non-Aligned Movement during this period and was among the most vocal in demanding the implementation of the New Economic Order and improvement of North-South relations. Manley to this day stands by his country's decision to back Cuban involvement in Angola; he argues that Castro, in offering Angola his support, was responding to requests from the legitimate Neto government trying to ward CIA destabilization efforts...
...Whether Manley's policies could have worked under normal conditions will never be known. Soon after the commitment to democratic socialism, oil prices quadrupled, triggering inflation which, if it rocked the boat of industrial nations, sank the developing ones--particularly Jamaica with its total dependence on foreign oil. Simultaneously, commodity prices, the backbone of Jamaica's economy, plummeted, decreasing her purchasing power in world markets fourfold. Unemployment hovered consistently around 30 percent and crime was rampant. Efforts to build a healthy mixed economy were shelved in the struggle to keep Jamaica's economy afloat...
...hand, the government approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Much of the book is devoted to the negotiations with the IMF and to Manley's caustic assessment of the organization. He contends that IMF conditions for aid, which include an austerity program, impose unbearable hardships on the receiving country, cutting wages and increasing unemployment. At one critical point Manley had to import either food to feed the starving or raw materials to avert economic collapse. The IMF, he concludes, is totally unresponsive to the needs of the Third World...
Discussion of the book will probably, center on Manley's allegation that the United States conducted a campaign of destabilization against his government, beginning when Manley backed Cuba's involvement in Angola and lasting until his defeat in the 1980 election. All this time, he charges, the American press false reported that Jamaica was in chaos and overplayed its ties with the communist countries. The CIA allegedly played upon the upper classes' fear of ongoing economic reforms and backed the sabotage and violence with which the JLP sought to undermine the Manley administration. The charges are bold, but Manley attaches...
...VALUE of Manley's book lies less in its role as contemporary history than in its unspoken call for action. The narrative indicts a system of international inequity of which the U.S. is a major perpetrator. In the process, Manley provides a glimpse of how the U.S. appears to much of the world--meddling, insensitive, and arbitrary. Jamaica exposes a basic fault in U.S. foreign policy: blinded by its free enterprise ideology. America immediately panics when some smaller nation close to home opts for a different path. Instead of endearing itself to its neighbors and endearing itself to its neighbors...