The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:Integrity, compassion, nobility and effectiveness in public servants will never do! I wonder if any reporters are connecting this story to the Pope's idea that the developed countries have created the third world as we know it. Curtsy: ninme.
"I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions . . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us . . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing."
Update: The other shoe drops. In this completely unfair WaPo story (compare w/ first link), see another reason the elites hate Wolfowitz. He doesn't think third world countries should have to abort their children in order to receive aid.
In recent months, World Bank employees have shaped the strategy, which directs the institution's lending, to include the ready availability of "sexual and reproductive health services" for women in poor countries. That bit of jargon is widely known in some countries to refer, among other things, to access to safe and legal abortions.
But in recent weeks, Juan Jos? Daboub, a conservative Christian whom Wolfowitz appointed managing director at the bank, directed the staff to delete that reference, effectively eliminating the endorsement for access to safe abortions, according to two bank officials. Daboub did not return calls.
In a letter sent last week to the bank vice president overseeing the strategy, several members of the governing board, including those representing Germany, France and Britain, demanded that the original language be restored, asserting that the bank would otherwise be breaking with a 1994 consensus embracing family planning.
This week, the American representative on the board, Eli Whitney Debevoise II, pressed again to remove the reference to "services" and replace it with "care," to eliminate any potential endorsement for abortion, the officials said.
Why is the religion of only one person in this story revealed I wonder? Did he take out the abortion language and write in "in Jesus' name?" If not, what does his religion have to do with anything? See here. And once again, this is precisely what Benedict means when he speaks of the Western world creating the Third World.
