Capitalism, IMF and World Bank under fire at U.N

Criticism of the IMF and other so-called Bretton Woods institutions established during World War Two has become a running theme at a three-day meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the crisis.

"Patching up the Bretton Woods system, which we do not control, makes no sense for (developing) countries," Correa said in a speech on the second day of the conference.

Reforming the IMF and World Bank "would be an insufficient stopgap solution," he said, adding that "we are faced with a crisis unlike those (previously) provoked by capitalism."

If the Bretton Woods institutions cannot be abolished, he said, then they should be changed and given less authority over the world's poor countries. More financial decision-making power, Correa said, should go to the United Nations instead.

Cuban Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz had said on Wednesday that the IMF and World Bank had "impoverished" nations around the world and should be scrapped.

The U.N. meeting was originally set for June 1-3 but General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto, a leftist former foreign minister of Nicaragua, delayed it to this week because of arguments over a set of draft proposals on reforming the world financial system.

Roughly three quarters of the General Assembly's 192 nations are participating in the conference, which is due to adopt a draft document outlining financial reform proposals which diplomats said now had close to unanimous backing.

The final proposals, watered down from an initial draft that was prepared by D'Escoto and rejected by Western powers as too radical, include a call for reforming the IMF.

But the only specific reform they call for is that the decision-making power of emerging market and developing states be increased in the next IMF quota review by early 2011.