Time to End Debt Slavery
By Mark Weisbrot
It has become a truism that "there are no easy
answers" to the world's most
pressing economic and social problems. The
phrase is often repeated by
academics, policy wonks, and others whose
occupation immerses them in the
details of real or imagined solutions. It
is worth remembering that the
abolitionists who fought against American
slavery right up to the Civil War
were told the same thing by those who advocated
a "go slow" approach, and
were long regarded as extremists for their
uncompromising moral stance.
Today's movement against the debt slavery
of the world's poorest countries
faces similar obstacles. First and foremost
is the enormous, entrenched
power of the slaveholding class-- represented
by the International Monetary
Fund and its controller, the United States
Treasury Department.
As the worldwide movement for debt cancellation
has grown-- including a 17
million-signature petition presented at the
G-7 meeting in June-- the
overseers have offered a series of concessions
designed to minimize debt
relief while maximizing their control over
the subject countries. For the
most part they have proposed to cancel only
a fraction of the "phantom"
debt-- the part that everyone knows cannot
be repaid. Thus there will be no
significant reduction in the amount of money
that is drained annually from
most of the world's poorest countries to service
their debt.
But it's even worse than
that. The latest initiatives, including those
approved at the recent IMF/World Bank meetings,
leave the IMF in control of
debt relief. This is like putting ***Kathie
Lee Gifford*** in charge of enforcing
international labor rights. Before qualifying
for even "phantom debt"
reduction, countries will have to complete
at least three years of the IMF's
"structural adjustment" programs, which have
caused so much poverty around
the globe. These programs ought to carry a
warning label that reads
"Caution: This medicine has been shown to
cause reduced growth, higher
unemployment and poverty, and lower levels
of education and public health."
Since the IMF and the World Bank began structurally
adjusting Africa in the
early 1980s, income per person has actually
fallen by about 20%. In Latin
America, it has basically stagnated. If that
isn't enough to indicate a
failed experiment that has gone on way too
long, just look at what these
same people have done to Asia, Russia, and
Brazil in just the last two
years.
The Fund's "structural adjustment" programs
have become so discredited that
it is now proposing to change the name of
its "Enhanced Structural
Adjustment Facility" to the "Poverty Reduction
and Growth Facility." As in
George Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" and "Ministry
of Love." Debt Slavery is
Freedom.
There are other maneuvers taking place in the
US Congress. One is an attempt
by the IMF to use some of its gold reserves
to replenish its newly named
Facility. Such a move would only increase
the power of this already
unaccountable institution, and should be defeated.
The other is a bill, put forward by House
Banking Committee Chairman Jim
Leach (R-IA), which would cancel debt owed
by 42 "Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries" to the US government. This would
be fine, although it's a small
fraction of these countries' debt. But the
bill unfortunately follows the
G-7/IMF lead by tying debt relief to the IMF's
structural adjustment.
No one should be fooled by President Clinton's
announcement that the debt to
the US government will be cancelled. For all
his fine language about "the
moral and economic urgency of the issue,"
he has offered nothing more than
the Leach bill, and would maintain the system
of debt slavery.
The case for unconditional and immediate cancellation
of the poorer
countries' debt grows more compelling each
day. Most of the countries up for
relief are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 22.5
million people are infected
with the AIDS virus. Who can justify forcing
Zimbabwe to pay a quarter of
its export earnings to debt service, when
26 percent of the adult population
there has HIV/AIDS? Or squeezing a similar
amount from Uganda, which has the
world's largest proportion of orphans?(1.7
million, mostly due to AIDS). Or
trying to collect on the $12.3 billion tab
that the former dictator Mobutu
piled up in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic
of Congo)?
The great abolitionist and former slave Frederick
Douglass had little
patience for the gradualists in the anti-slavery
movement of his day, those
would delay the inevitable at the cost of
enormous human suffering.
Responding to one, he said: "If the reverend
gentleman had worked on the
plantations where I have been, he would have
met overseers who would have
whipped him in five minutes out of his willingness
to wait for liberty."
Mark Weisbrot is research director of the Preamble
Center, in Washington,
DC.
Name: Mark Weisbrot
E-mail: <weisbrot@preamble.org>
Preamble Center 1737 21st Street NW Washington
DC 20009
(202) 265-3263, ext.279 (offc)
Kathie Lee Gifford is a well known TV personality who, like many companies such as Nike, had her designer goods made in Third World countries in so-called Sweatshops where workers are paid very little and forced to endure horrible working conditions. Some would call it a kind of slavery. At the time this information became public knowledge, she denied it. Later she simply claimed she hadn't realized it.