[DEBATE] : Statement ...Cancellation of Illegitimate Debts

[Riaz Tayob]

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*Statement of the International Conference on the Cancellation of 
Illegitimate Debts*

/May 27-29, 2006/

Jakarta, Indonesia

*/CANCEL DICTATOR DEBTS!/*

*/CANCEL ILLEGITIMATE DEBTS!/**//*

The /International Conference on the Cancellation of Illegitimate Debts/ 
was attended by 150 representatives from Southern and Northern social 
movements and civil society organizations from 15 countries of Asia, 
Africa, Europe and the Americas. Also present were parliamentarians and 
government officials joining the people’s efforts against the yoke of 
enslaving debt. The conference was organized by Reality of Aid-Asia 
Pacific, IBON Foundation, International NGO Forum on Indonesian 
Development (INFID) and Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC). 
Co-sponsoring were Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), European Network on Debt 
and Development (Eurodad), African Network on Debt and Development 
(Afrodad), Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and Kairos-Canada.

The conference participants aimed to deepen their understanding of the 
extent and impact of illegitimate, odious and dictator debts on the poor 
peoples of Southern countries. We arrived each bringing the experience 
of our respective movements and organizations in the struggle for the 
cancellation of these debts, and we leave inspired by the determination 
and tenacity we have seen in each others’ national and international 
campaigns. The global struggle against the debt has already achieved so 
much and we resolve to continue, build up and intensify our resistance 
to these.

The people of the South have suffered trillions of dollars in debt and 
debt servicing for decades which has been among the greatest burdens 
causing their continued and deepening economic backwardness and social 
underdevelopment. Yet even as hundreds of billions of dollars are paid 
every year to creditor banks and organizations in the world’s wealthiest 
countries these debts are not going away and indeed are growing ever 
larger – reaching US$2.6 trillion as of 2004. There are national 
governments that spend up to half of their budgets just on debt 
servicing. This has caused untold hunger, poverty, misery and 
deprivation for generations of peoples across Asia, Africa and Latin 
America.

The usurious Paris Club governments, organizations and international 
financial institutions are unmindful of all this and only concerned that 
repayments continue whatever the social, cultural, ecological and 
economic devastation wrought. Even the recent supposed initiatives at 
addressing the debt problem such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries 
(HIPC) and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiatives (MDRI) have so far 
unfortunately been merely token or insufficient. At the same time there 
are so few positive developments such as the creditor Norwegian 
government’s acknowledging the existence of illegitimate debt.

Debt servicing is happening at the cost of the exploitation of people, 
the denial of their basic rights to social and public services, the 
plunder of Southern agricultural, forest and mineral resources, and the 
destruction of sovereignty. The debt is even being used to impose 
destructive and one-sided policies of neoliberal globalization. This 
grotesque situation must be ended or else the greater majority of the 
world’s people who are poor will be driven ever deeper into debt and 
poverty. Northern governments are challenged to put so much Millennium 
Development Goal (MDG) and Financing for Development rhetoric into 
genuine development practice.

   1. So much of Southern debt is patently onerous, imbued with
      corruption, forced by creditors, used for projects that have been
      harmful to the people and environment, a result of self-serving
      Northern economic policies or merely borrowing to repay debt. *The
      people repudiate this illegitimate debt and we call for its
      absolute and unconditional cancellation*.
   2. We are particularly appalled at debt willfully given by Northern
      creditors to the world’s worst dictatorships including Marcos,
      Suharto, Pinochet, Duvalier, Mobutu, the apartheid regimes, juntas
      and many others. This debt of some US$451 billion accumulated over
      the 1950-1996 period not only merely enriched these regimes and
      their Northern collaborators but directly resulted in the killing,
      disappearance, torture and abuse of human rights of hundreds of
      thousands of people. *We call for the immediate cancellation of
      dictator debt which is the most brazen and odious debt endured by
      Southern peoples*.
   3. The peoples of the South have long been repaying debt that should
      not be paid for being illegitimate and odious; this long-standing
      injustice cannot be forgotten and must be rectified. *We call for
      the return of these payments on illegitimate and dictator debt*.
   4. Southern debt and debt servicing have grown to such monstrous
      proportions and taken such different forms that we do not even
      know the true extent and depths of the problem. Northern creditors
      have used this to obscure the extent of their culpability and the
      vastness of the damage. *We then also call for immediate public
      and transparent audits of Southern debt in support of our campaign
      for the cancellation of illegitimate and dictator debt*.
   5. We recognize that our historic fight against burdensome and unjust
      debts lies most of all in the strength of our social movements and
      civil society organizations even as we link up with progressive
      parliamentarians and government officials. We are committed to
      contributing to the on-going campaigns and initiatives happening
      across the South and the North. Towards our overall struggle to
      cancel all illegitimate and dictator debt we resolve to do the
      following:
         1. Deepen understanding of the burden of debt and its impacts
            on Southern countries.

· Conduct citizen’s audits quantifying the debt, reviewing the 
circumstances in which they were contracted, and assessing their impact

· Develop case studies of the most blatant examples of illegitimate and 
dictator debt to concretize the issue and aid campaigning

         2. Build the capacity of our campaigners on the debt issue.

· Basic information, handbooks and trainings

· Case studies on the successful Nigeria and Argentina initiatives

         3. Conduct widespread and sustained grassroots education
            campaigns for greater awareness-building and mass mobilizations.

· They shall be popular, concretize the issue on the ground, and use 
creative forms such as cultural activities

· They shall be conducted in communities and schools

         4. Conduct media campaigns to reach out to the broadest public.
         5. Promote and support Parliamentary initiatives that advance
            our efforts to cancel the debt.

· These may include parliamentary resolutions and legislation calling 
for cancellation, official debt audits and changes in burdensome 
national debt policies

         6. Develop further national cooperation and networking among
            social movements, civil society, parliamentarians,
            professionals, civil servants, academics and other anti-debt
            advocates.
         7. Develop further North-South and South-South cooperation,
            networking and solidarity among social movements, civil
            society and parliamentarians.

· Set-up core groups for these linkages

· Conduct coordinated global education and mass actions to further raise 
the visibility of the debt issue

         8. Conduct advocacy campaigns in Northern countries to the
            general public and among creditor governments, bilateral aid
            agencies and multilateral institutions.

The burden of debt is indeed one of the most urgent issues of our time. 
The campaign to cancel odious and illegitimate debt is just the start of 
our overall efforts to cancel the debt and end foreign domination of 
Southern economies. But not only have Southern peoples suffered this 
burden for so long they are also facing the consequences of neoliberal 
policies of trade and investment liberalization, privatization and 
deregulation imposed by the world’s handful of big powers. The struggle 
to cancel the debt would just be a part of our struggles to be able to 
realize a more just and humane society for our peoples. ###


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