Life and Debt. . - Mixed Media - movie review

New Internationalist, May, 2003

directed by Stephanie Black

The statistics ram the message home. When, in the 1970s, Prime Minister Michael Manley bitterly accepted the need for a 'short-term' IMF loan, Jamaica's debt was $800 million. It's now $7,000 million and the Jamaican economy is in ruins.

The IMF -- controlled by the US, Japan and western Europe -- forced Jamaica to devalue its currency and abandon agricultural subsidies. Jamaican produce became dearer while cheap subsidized imports, from the US and American-owned companies, swept in. Bye-bye Jamaican agriculture.

Stephanie Black interviews Manley, smiling IMF representatives, textile workers trapped in a modern form of slavery, and articulate but impoverished farmers. This is a seething, reasoned documentary. And it should make you angry - globalization is a killer.

Rating ****

REVIEWERS

Peter Whittaker * Louise Gray * Malcolm Lewis * George Fisher

STAR RATING

EXCELLENT * * * * *

VERY GOOD * * * *

GOOD * * *

FAIR * *

POOR *