SOVIET ALLEGES U.S. MANIPULATION OF WORLD BANK

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 October 1947, Page 7

SOVIET ALLEGES U.S. MANIPULATION OF WORLD BANK

NEW YORK. October 13.

Charges that the United States wanted to use the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as instruments for its own foreign policy were made today by Professor A. A. Arutiunian, chief economic adviser of the Soviet delegation to the United Nations, at a meeting of the joint economic and social committee.

He said that the new draft agreements between the two financial institutions and the United Nations were in flagrant violation of the Charter: The two institutions were already losing their independence because the United States had a virtual veto power over their policies, and loans were now being made only to those countries approved by America. Professor Arutiunian said that the World Bank, in making a 195,000,000 dollar loan to Holland on August 1 1, was promoting war in the Netherlands East Indies. The bank would also like to further United States and British plans for reviving German industry by issuing a loan that could build up the Ruhr, which was the very basis of German military potential.

Mr Willard Thorp (United States) said that the loan to Holland had been studied for some time before the Dutch-Indonesian conflict had gone to the Security Council, and since the Council had made no recommendation that, economic sanctions should be levied against Holland, the bank had approved the loan without' injecting into the problem a political consideration.