Iraqis Pummeled at the Pumps

January 7th, 2006 at 10:50 Björn Hallberg

While “poor people are not necessarily using cars,” they may want to cook their food an heat their homes. The article is written as if filling up your car was the only concern and as if it was a minor nuisance, pretty much like when prices rise in the US. So basically, US instruments of power, like the IMF, are adding insult to injury by once again force feeding its neoliberal experiment. One that is still pending recommendation. Even in the prosperous western world.

La Times via GPF - Fuel Prices Have Quintupled in Two Weeks as the Government Starts to Reduce Subsidies - Iraq’s government has sharply raised the price of fuel and other petroleum products this month, sparking discontent and protests and worrying international observers who say the increases could hurt millions of poor Iraqis and throw the country into further turmoil. Since the Dec. 15 parliamentary election, fuel prices have increased fivefold, mostly because the outgoing government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari has cut subsidies as part of a debt-forgiveness deal it signed with the International Monetary Fund.

The move has shocked Iraqis long accustomed to hefty subsidies of gasoline, kerosene, cooking gas and other fuels, and thousands have demonstrated in and around the capital to protest the price increases. The oil minister has threatened to quit.

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