IPS-English POVERTY: 40-Day Global Fast for Debt Cancellation
 
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:42:46 -0700


POVERTY: 40-Day Global Fast for Debt Cancellation
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 7   (IPS)  - A group of celebrities from 
several countries have joined a rolling 40-day fast beginning 
this Thursday to call for cancellation of the foreign debt of the 
world's poorest countries.

”It's an appeal to the conscience of the international 
community,” Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, who began to fast 
Thursday, told IPS. The writer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 
in 1980 for his human rights work.

”We want to bear witness and appeal to the conscience of the 
international community, asking them to reflect, to design 
policies for the poorest of the poor, and to redistribute income, 
because that's the only way we will achieve real democracy,” said 
Pérez Esquivel. 

Also taking part in the fast are the archbishop of Cape Town, 
Njongonkulu Ndungane, the primate of the Anglican Church of 
Southern Africa; South African poet Dennis Brutus; former 
Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa (1995-2005); and former 
Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda (1964-1991), according to 
Jubilee USA.

Other participants include U.S. activists Bart Campolo, chaplain 
of the religious organisation Mission Year; doctor and 
anthropologist Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health; 
and political scientist and writer Susan George, who lives in 
France and is president of the Globalisation Observatory.

British economist, author and activist Noreena Hertz, a former 
researcher for the World Bank, will also take part in the fast, 
as will Paul Zeitz, the executive director of the Global AIDS 
Alliance.

Pastor and activist David Duncombe, in Washington, is undertaking 
a 40-day hunger strike until Oct. 15, in an attempt to persuade 
the U.S. Congress to approve a bill to write off the debt of the 
poorest countries as a contribution to reducing extreme poverty.

Duncombe is lobbying for the passage of the Jubilee Act, 
introduced in Congress in June by Democratic Representative 
Maxine Waters and Rep. Spencer Bachus of the governing Republican 
Party, which would cancel the foreign debt of 67 poor countries. 

Debt cancellation is regarded as a basic pre-requisite for these 
countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 
adopted by the international community in 2000. The first of 
these goals is to halve the proportion of people suffering from 
hunger and extreme poverty by 2015, from 1990 levels.

While he is fasting, Duncombe will meet with members of both 
houses of Congress. Aged 79, the pastor and activist has carried 
out even longer hunger strikes in the U.S. Capitol twice before, 
with the same end in view. Hundreds of supporters, in the United 
States and abroad, are sharing in his campaign by fasting for one 
or more days.

The rolling fast will precede a Week of Global Action Against 
Debt and International Financial Institutions, convened by social 
organisations and movements all over the world, from Oct. 14 to 
21.

The Week of Action will include rallies, fasts, debating forums, 
badge wearing, workshops, parades and other activities put 
forward by organisations that wish to join the campaign.  

The anti-debt campaign is being promoted by Jubilee South, a 
global network of more than 85 organisations in 40 countries in 
Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and Asia Pacific that was 
established at a South-South summit in South Africa in 1999 to 
strengthen the debt cancellation movement.

In Argentina, pastor Ángel Furlan of the United Evangelical 
Lutheran Church (IELU), and Pablo Herrero Garisto of Diálogo 
2000, which advocates cancellation of illegitimate foreign debt 
in the poorest countries, are taking part in the fast. 

”Governments are not paying any attention to the issue of foreign 
debt,” said Pérez Esquivel. In Argentina, an investigation by 
Alejandro Olmos, a journalist who died in 2000, led to a ruling 
by federal justice authorities that debt contracted during the 
1976-1983 military dictatorship was ”illegal, immoral, 
illegitimate and fraudulent.” 

Nevertheless, the loans to the military dictatorship were assumed 
by the democratic state at the end of the regime, and have been 
part of Argentina's foreign debt ever since. 

”The present government (of President Néstor Kirchner) 
congratulates itself on having paid off the debt owed to the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF), while children are starving to 
death,” Pérez Esquivel complained.

Pérez Esquivel pointed out that in Argentina, in the northeastern 
province of Chaco, serious cases of malnutrition have come to 
light in recent weeks. ”Nevertheless, the illegitimate debt is 
still being serviced and repaid,” he protested.

The Kirchner administration repaid all IMF loans and has 
renegotiated its bond issues with the majority of private 
creditors, extending deadlines and securing significant 
reductions. However, the state has continued to issue debt bonds.

In Pérez Esquivel's view, poor countries should carry out audits 
to determine how much of their debt is legitimate and how much 
illegitimate, and repay only the former. ”This is being done by 
the governments of Bolivia and Ecuador, which are among the 
poorest countries in South America,” he said.

”Why should Argentines, especially the poorest, pay back debts 
contracted during the dictatorship by private companies like IBM, 
Ford or Ledesma, and which were later transferred to the state?” 
asked the Nobel prizewinner on his first day of fasting. 

”We cannot behave as if financial capital were more important 
than human capital,” he said.


***** + FINANCE: Debt Relief Cleared for Latin Nations 
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36966) + DEVELOPMENT: 
Post-Summit Dilemma of Promises and Delivery - 2005 
(http://ipsnews.net/sendnews.asp?idnews=30433) + Jubilee South  
(http://www.jubileesouth.org) + Global Week of Action against 
Debt & IFIs (http://www.debtweek.org)


(END/IPS/WD IF HD DV MD IP CS/TRASP-VD-SW/MV/07)


 
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