IMF DECISIONS can mean life and death for millions already disadvantaged in the game of global economics. It follows that its leader’s integrity has to count for something. This is why I am so repulsed at what is being revealed about the man who wields so much power over so many lives, including we who live in an IMF fiefdom.

Current local propaganda is that the IMF, seen by some as the best thing for us since sliced bread, has come once again to save us in our hour of need. The Fund, we’re told, is no longer the enemy as in Michael Manley’s 70s, but today is beneficient and bountiful, providing us with loan support and wise advice on how to spend what is being made available to us from the kindness of their heart. Never mind the interest on the loans. As to default, don’t even think of it.

So why am I scorning their leader? Because he’s a creep, that’s why. His reputation as a sex fiend was well-known long before today, but apart from a mild reprimand for an inappropriate affair which he had with one of his staffers, at the Fund headquarters, nobody seemed concerned about his reported inability to keep his pants zipped and his hands off women whom he seemed to regard as part of his global remit. As reports of his latest escapade now make global headlines, we’re hearing that his ram-goat behaviour was well known. It is fair to assume that no one, including him, imagined that a day would come when his image would be tarnished before the eyes of all the world.

Go ahead – tell me about separating private life from public responsibilities. Yeh. Right. Talk till you are whatever colour in the face you choose, but there are too many predators around. Next thing we’ll be hearing how he couldn’t help himself, because as a child, he suffered from a deficit of love so that as an adult, in our graphic, hometown phraseology, he felt compelled to “hold-dung-and-tek-weh”, an act otherwise known as RAPE, however you spell it.

The world is appalled at the allegations that Dominique sexually assaulted a maid in a fancy New York hotel and then fled to Kennedy airport to catch a flight which would take him home to Paris to continue his campaign in the French presidential elections and then proceed to go weave the IMF spell on some neighbouring countries with fiscal problems. As for his alleged victim, she could not flee and now must be prepared to defend her reputation.

Rape victims always pay. That’s how the game goes. Even crazy, conspiracy theories are permitted. Already, one story circulating says she was set up by the Sarkozy camp in the French presidential race to bear false witness against him. Surprise, surprise! As in all rape cases, the woman, as complainant, must endure humiliation and indignity. How dare she make such a dastardly claim against this distinguished world figure? Imagine! Surely, one of such high rank would not choose to copulate with the hired help. Who is she anyway?

Media reports say that she is a 32-year-old African who went to the United States as a refugee. She has been employed at the hotel for three years. As the quest continues for as much sensation as possible, rumours abound. It is now being said that the Bronx apartment where she lives is in a building reserved for people living with HIV/AIDS. This has been investigated and denied, but the rumours persist including the latest – that she may have infected him with the disease that would mean of course that SHE is the real criminal.

THE BIGGEST INSULT of all is the standard defence in rape cases – that the sexual act was consensual. Apparently, we are to believe that this woman was so turned on by this global power broker, displaying his assets in the hotel bathroom, that she threw herself on him and ravaged his old man’s body, getting battered and buggered and insulted in the process. Then, there is the old standby, “She asked for it”. The victim can expect to be victimised for as long as it takes, as the matter drags through the courts while efforts are made to rescue the shredded reputation of an old lecher.

My contempt is also for the System which easily overlooks reprehensible behaviour by men who have reached the

top of the power ladder and see nothing wrong with sexual harassment. The more powerful the harasser, the greater the benefit of the doubt. Well, luck has to run out sooner or later. Let’s see if this is Mr IMF’s time.

By the way, he is no stranger to our shores. Last July, Mr IMF attended the 31st regular Caricom meeting in Montego Bay where he served up fatherly advice on “the regional crisis of high debt burden and tight borrowing conditions”. He urged us lesser beings, dependent on the Fund as saviour, to “co-operate for the greater good… We must deepen trust and respect and renew our commitment to working together”, he proclaimed. Trust and respect… was that his mantra, only for public show or, if reports are to be believed, it had nothing to do with his private life?

ANOTHER ONE bites the dust. And now… the whole world’s talking about the duplicity of Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger, who has gone from super movie star and California Governor Emeritus to outed baby father. The child, now 13 years old, was born to a member of his staff who worked right there in the house with his wife of 25 years, who did not know what was done in overtime. Now, “story come to bump”. Of course, something like that couldn’t happen here…Right? I don’t hear you… right?

POLITICS OF POLITICS: Dr Karl Blythe emerges from obscurity to bring the 800-pound gorilla of Finsac to haunt his former Comrades. They’re to blame, he says, for the financial meltdown of yesteryear. Stand by for…Autoclaps!

SCRAP THE SCRAP: How long will the charade continue of the so-called scrap metal industry? When an arm of government could contemplate selling off a piece of the Port Antonio railway artefacts as scrap, then we’re really delusional.

FLASHBACK: One year since Dudusgate, since Tivoli saw blood and tears. What have we learned, how have we changed?

gloudonb@yahoo.com