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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa: Debt Cancellation Update
Africa: Debt Cancellation Update
Date distributed (ymd): 000424
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains two recent documents relating to African
debt cancellation campaigns. The first relates to organizing
for a meeting in Dakar projected for December 2000, initiated
by several African and European networks. Additional groups
interested are urged to get in touch with the Comite pour
l'Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde (CADTM) / Committee
for the Cancellation of Third World Debt (COCAD) at
cadtm@skynet.be (more contact information below). The second
document is a summary report from a Jubilee 2000 Zambia
workshop on apartheid-caused debt. For additional information
see both the Jubilee 2000 web site cited below and the
Alternative Information and Development Centre web site
(http://www.aidc.org.za).
For additional links to documents and organizations working on
debt, see http://www.africapolicy.org/action/debt.htm
For a recent call from former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda
for total debt cancellation, published in the New Statesman,
see
http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/200004170023.htm
"Africa has paid its dues many times," Kaunda notes.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Amsterdam APPEAL
For the Cancellation of African debt
Africa : From Resistance to Alternatives
For more information:
CADTM / COCAD, 29, Rue Plantin, B-1070
Bruxelles, Belgium.
Tel: 32-2-257-59-90; Fax: 32-2-522-61-27
e-mail: cadtm@skynet.be
Web: http://users.skynet.be/cadtm
For more background on the Dakar 2000 meeting, see in
particular http://users.skynet.be/cadtm/angdakka.htm
The new slavery in Africa, which results from the burden of
the debt and the enforcement of structural adjustment
policies, is an unprecendented shame at the beginning of the
21st century. In an overwhemling majority of African countries
servicing the debt drains more money that allocated to both
education and health services. It should be obvious that each
cent spent on paying for the cost of public debts is lost in
the urgent fight against poverty, illiteracy, malaria, AIDS
and other wide spread diseases, some of which could be easily
cured. The structural ajustment policies imposed by the World
Bank and the IMF have largely contributed to sink many African
countries in a deep economic depression : they exacerbated
social and gender inequality, they spread poverty on a large
scale, they jeopardize the environment and access to food and
water, they fuel armed conflicts and thus create conditions
that are favourable to recolonizing the continent through
pirvatization and liberalization policies.
Like all preceding gestures, the initiatives taken in Cologne
(June 1999) and in Cairo (April 2000) do not offer any actual
solution.
Considering this tragic predicament a wide-spread movement has
organized on a global scale : we appeal for the cancellation
of the Third World debt and for the suppression of adjustment
policies that have only contribute to more poverty wherever
they are enforced.
In most cases the debt was contracted by non democratic
governments that were often supported by industrialized
countries. The borrowed money was used to finance repressive
when not genocidal policies (as in Rwanda in 1994) and never
helped the people of the indebted countries. The embezzlement
of public loans was systematically organized in full knowledge
of public and private loaners in industrialized countries. In
terms of international law the 'odious' debt that results from
such loans is invalid.
In the specific case of subsaharan Africa an irrefutable
historical argument in favour of unconditional cancellation is
that what is owed to western 'loaners' is only a tiny portion
of what European have stolen there since the 15th century.
Slavery robbed the continent of 60 to 100 millions inhabitants
to transport them to the Americas, colonization and current
recolonization have drained it of its natural as well as human
resources. Africa has already paid more than enough.
Today the World Bank, which is largely responsible for the
disaster of the last thirty years, acknowledges that the
standards for human development are plummetting in Africa. The
actual income per inhabitant has steadily dropped over this
period. In several African countries life expectancy (which
hardly reached 46) is dramatically falling as a consequence of
abject poverty. Yet the IMF and the WB still insist on
imposing structural adjustments to pay for (or at least
service) their debts through initiatives that claim to help
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC Initiative). The only
change is on the level of discourse : we now hear of Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) instead of Structural
Adjustment Program (SAP).
For these reasons an immediate and unconditional cancellation
of Africa's foreign debts is no more than an ethical demand
for social justice. It would free resources that are urgently
needed for investments in production (which will provide jobs
for younger generations), for health, education, culture,
women's emancipation, for the eradication of poverty and the
preservation of the environment and thus of biodiversity.
Africa must simultaneously put a stop to adjustment policies
that are largely responsible for its current catastrophic
situation. The stress on budget austerity in the name of an
alleged "macroeconomic equilibrium" and wide-spread
privatizations have led to a dramatic reduction of public
expenditure, which in turn results in recession, unemployment
and poverty.
Liberalization and privatisation policies have contributed to
transnational corporations controling African economies. The
libre echange creed has deprived Africa of food security.
Cultural creation is subjected to a wild competition by
cultural products from industrialized countries. Only if
Africa puts a stop to such policies can it hope recover some
autonomy in shaping its own development policies.
African people cannot be expected to be passive in front of
the sacrifice of whole generations and of a new colonization
that hides its true nature. African personalities and
organizations are determined to rely on popular support to
participate in a global mobilization which has found a new
impetus with the "Jubilee 2000" campaign, mobilizing as it
does millions of people throughout the world and collecting
over 20 millions signatures that were presented to the G-7
leaders in Cologne in June 1999. But the "Jubilee 2000"
campaign ends at the end of the year. It is thus urgent to
take stock of what has been gained and to review the limits of
the campaign in order to carry on the struggle for the
cancellation of Africa's debt, the suppression of adjustment
policies and the elaboration of policies aiming at sustainable
human development.
The present appeal follows upon the declarations at Accra
(Jubilee 2000 - April 1998), Lusaka (Jubilee 2000 - May 1999),
Johannesburg (Jubilee South - November 1999) and Yaounde
(January 2000), as well as of converging initiatives such as
that of ATTAC (Paris - June 1999), the protest in Seattle, the
Women's World March in 2000 and the Bangkok appeal (February
2000), all of them demanding the cancellation of the debt in
Third World countries.
Gathered in Amsterdam on 4 to 7 April, we appeal for an
international and panafrican meeting in Dakar on 12 to 17
December 2000 that will be called DAKAR 2000 : from Resistance
to Alternatives. Its objectives will be:
- to assess Africa's debt at the end of the year 2000 after
the jubilee campaign and to consider the impact of bilateral
and multilateral solutions for the "lightening" of the debt;
- to review the economic, social and human effects of
structural adjustment policies, focusing on key-sectors such
as education, health, employment, income distribution,
traditional farming ;
- to devise short-, medium- and long-term strategies in order
to
- achieve the cancellation of the debt and the suppression of
adjustment programs,
- contribute to the implementation of a development policy
based on the needs of the people. This presupposes new forms
of mobilization and new ways of distributing wealth as well as
new financing methods such as the recovery of
illicitly-acquired goods, a tax on international financial
transactions, fair trade and fair taxation policies.
First signatories:
- Association Internationale des Techniciens Experts et
Chercheurs (AITEC - France)
- Association pour le Commerce Equitable de Genève (ACEG -
Suisse)
- Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC - South
Africa)
- Centre National de Cooperation au Developpement / National
Center for Development and Cooperation (CNCD - Brussels),
- Centre Europe - Tiers Monde (CETIM - Suisse)
- Comite pour l'Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde (CADTM)/
Committee for the Cancellation of Third World Debt (COCAD),
- Commission Tiers Monde de l'Eglise Catholique (COTMEC -
SUISSE)
- Conseil des Organisations Non Gouvernementales d'Appui au
Developpement (CONGAD - Senegal),
- Coalition Congolaise pour l'Annulation de la Dette et le
Developpement (CCADD - DR Congo),
- Confederation Paysanne (France)
- Coalition Jubilee 2000 du Mali (CNM/J2000 - Mali)
- Groupe Dette Tiers Monde - ATTAC Geneve Suisse
- Federation des Associations de Solidarite avec les
Travailleurs Immigres (FASTI - France)
- Service de Renforcement des Appuis aux Communautes de Base
en Afrique Centrale (Seracob - Burundi, Rwanda, RD Congo)
- Trans National Institute (TNI - Pays-Bas)
- Union Nationale des Syndicats Autonomes du Senegal (UNSAS -
Senegal)
To get more information, please supply the following
information and write to CADTM / COCAD, 29, Rue Plantin, B-
1070 Bruxelles, Belgium. Tel: 32-2-257-59-90; Fax: 32-2-522-
61-27; e-mail: cadtm@skynet.be
Movement:
Postal Address:
Email:
Name of the "personne responsable":
WORKSHOP: "APARTHEID CAUSED-DEBT: THE CASE OF ZAMBIA"
For more information:
Jubilee 2000 Zambia Campaign, c/o JESUIT CENTRE FOR
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION, P.O. Box 37774, 10101 Lusaka, Zambia
Tel: 260-1-290-410; Fax: 260-1-290-759; E-mail:
phenriot@zamnet.zm; debtjctr@zamnet.zm
Web Page: http://www.jctr.org.zm/jubilee2000.htm
Consisting of a working group of 25 people, this workshop was
held on March 14, 2000. This one-day meeting focused on
international, regional and national efforts in campaigning
for the cancellation of debts accrued as a result of the
apartheid system in South Africa.
Presenting the international scene, Mr Theo Kneifel from KASA,
Ecumenical Agency for Advocacy Work on Southern Africa,
Germany, gave a background to the apartheid caused-debt
activities, the rationale and purpose. He explained that the
debt is perceived as unpayable and illegitimate. It basically
addresses the question of "who pays who?" Based on this
question, the campaign declares that all loans to the
apartheid regime and its agents are odious, loans given to the
neighbouring states as assistance to resist Pretoria's
destabilisation policy should be cancelled, apartheid linked
loans that have already been repaid were paid from the
suffering of the people and lastly, companies, governments and
banks that did not heed to the international call for
sanctions against South Africa sustained the apartheid regime
and the profites accrued as a results are tainted and
therefore, reparation payments should now be made to the
people of Southern Africa.
Mr Theo informed the participants that international advocacy
work has concentrated on urging Government and private
multilateral company creditors to cancel such debts and make
repayments. Mr Neville Gabriel of Jubilee 2000-South Africa
presented a paper on the campaign about apartheid caused-debt
at regional level. Recognising regional solidarity as the main
thrust of the campaign at this level, Mr Gabriel stressed the
importance of viewing the servicing of these debts from the
moral aspect as it is done at the expense of poverty. He
explained that Jubilee South perceived these debts from the
moral, economic, political, historical and legal points. With
this, Jubilee South supports a shift from the "Charity"
approach which implies leniency for debt forgiveness to the
"Justice" approach which demands fairness and cancellation of
debts.
On activities at the regional level, Mr Gabriel informed the
participants that efforts have focused on further research and
consolidation of solidarity in calling for cancellation and
demanding payment of reparations.
On behalf of Jubilee 2000-Zambia, Barbara Kalima and Charity
Musamba presented some preliminary findings on "Apartheid
Caused-Debt: The Case of Zambia". The findings indicated a
high possibility of the Zambian Government spending hugely on
anti-apartheid activities during the 1970s and 1980s. Recorded
as the longest standing conflicting state of the apartheid
system, Zambia was found to have spent large portions of
funds, time and human resource in economic, defence,
liberation movements and reconstruction activities.
Events cited included the building of the Tanzania-Zambia
railway line, INDENI oil Refinery, and the pipeline, the
Great North Road, airlifting of copper exports, defence
equipment, training and hosting of freedom fighters from
throughout the southern African region.
A narrative paper on anti-apartheid activities in Zambia,
presented by the last Minister of Finance and Economic
Planning during the second Republic, Mr Rabbinson Chongo,
classified the costs into four categories; namely,
infrastructural cost of de-linkage, direct military cost,
import and export costs and intangible costs.
In his presentation, Mr Chongo stressed the rationale for the
stance taken by Zambia at that time. It being the only first
independent state in southern African region, Zambia had to
spearhead liberation efforts and opposed any system that
perpetuated minority dominance. Dictatorial systems had been
condemned internationally, and Zambia had been a signatory to
such declarations.
He confirmed that Zambia had to incur a lot of costs for
taking a decision. First, Zambia's relations with the rest of
the states in the region were strained. Secondly, the Pretoria
Government pursued as aggressive policy against Zambia, its
opponent. Thirdly, Zambia had to borrow and misdirect national
resources in order to meet the demands caused by apartheid
pressures.
Encouraged by this presentation, the participants recommended
a detailed, systematic and accurate account on apartheid
caused-debt for Zambia. Ideas on consolidating regional
networking were also discussed. Jubilee 2000-Zambia will
commit itself to continue this research and advocacy.
Further information on the study shall be made available in
due course and a report on this workshop will be available.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC's primary
objective is to widen international policy debates around
African issues, by concentrating on providing accessible
policy-relevant information and analysis usable by a wide
range of groups and individuals.
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