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Calls for debt cancellation for Tsunami-hit countries
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development(ZIMCODD)
January 21, 2005

The Jubilee South, a network of jubilee and debt campaigns, social movements, people's organizations, communities, NGOs and political formations, and the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and development, have called for the Northern Countries to unconditionally cancel debt owed to them by tsunami-hit countries and all countries of the South.

In a statement issued following the 26 December 2004 earthquake that hit several Indian and Pacific Countries, the Jubilee south said, "Now, more than ever, at their hour of greatest need, the peoples of the South must be heeded in their long-standing demand for debt cancellation. In the face of this massive destruction, northern and international creditors should not continue to hold South peoples in bondage for debts that have in large part, only contributed to their impoverishment and deprivation."

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and development who are a member of the Jubilee South Network, have reiterated the call for immediate and unconditional debt cancellation in the wake of the Tsunami disaster. ZIMCODD’s Executive Director, Davie Malungisa said, "The Northern governments must cancel the debts of the developing countries. This will allow rehabilitation and reconstruction work to be resourced in the aftermath of the tsunami. Otherwise money meant for rehabilitation will go to servicing debt. Money meant for health and education will go to servicing debts".

ZIMCODD and the Jubilee South Jubilee South view debt as a structural issue perpetuating dominance of the North over the South especially in the areas of economic policy. They argue that the debts are illegitimate and have been paid several times over. The main problem is only that of compound interests and forced loan refinancing.

Meanwhile, media reports said the US president George W. Bush, whose government owns a huge stake in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the South’s key international creditors, has appointed his own Father George Bush, His brother, Jeb Bush (governor of Florida) and his former secretary of state Colin Powell, to head the US efforts and to ‘co-ordinate" the relief assistance from all other countries and UN agencies.

The Jubilee South have said, "If there is any measure of sincerity in the outpouring of compassion from North governments for the peoples of the South, let this be through concrete action – In addition to emergency relief operations and rehabilitation, what we need immediately is debt cancellation. Southern governments should not continue to prioritize debt service, and squander much needed public funds"

Further to this, Mr Malungisa said "Southern Africa also face disasters from time to time. Remember Elnino and the floods in Mozambique. In fact, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya have been impacted by the Tsunami tidal wave. It is therefore immoral to continue to demand payment for debts that are in any case illegitimate, in the context of such human disasters which sometime include droughts"

This week the Paris Club of creditor states approved a moratorium on the debt payments of the countries worst hit
 by the Indian Ocean tsunami, to free up money for reconstruction. Together the countries owe $272bn and pay
 about $23bn a year in servicing these debts. "That part of it is ugly," Stephen Lewis, U.N. special envoy for
 HIV/AIDS in Africa is reported to have said.

Calls for the total and unconditional debt cancellation have long been tabled before the countries of the North by social movements across the world with a growing number of activists calling for reparations from the North to redress years of colonial and apartheid-caused underdevelopment of the South. The North have continued to drag their feet on the issue with some creditors only partially conceding to conditional cancellation.

Visit the ZIMCODD fact sheet

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