Tuesday, June 26, 2007 Ong: In solidarity with the Liberian people By Ted Aldwin Ong Misreadings
GLOBAL debt cancellation campaigners recently held a reunion in Germany during a parallel activity with the G8 Summit in order to reassert calls to the creditor nations for the cancellation of illegitimate debts borne by countries in the South.
The Liberian debt campaigners have pushed for the cancellation of debts acquired by their government for purposes that did not benefit their nation and people. Similar to the Philippines , debt payments have become the main priority of these governments which greatly compromised needed budget to finance development initiatives.
The Liberian people issued a strong call to leaders of the G8 to take immediate action for the cancellation of Liberia 's debt. Two years ago in Gleneagles , Scotland , the G8 committed to deliver extra debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries yet it did not solve the crisis besetting Liberia.
This is the reason why Lancedell Mathews of the New African Research and Development Agency, a representative of the country's platform of Development NGOs, reassert demands to the G8 to cancel Liberia 's debt immediately. To Mathews, "while the international community is moving to bring Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to justice for his crimes against humanity, the G8 is delaying the debt relief that Taylor´s victims urgently need to rebuild their war torn country."
In 2004, Liberia emerged from civil war. Today, with an annual budget of only US$130 million, President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson and Finance Minister Antoinette Sayeh are trying to free Liberia from the clutches of its external debt.
Over the past two decades, Liberia accumulated an incredible US$3.7 billion in foreign debt, US$1.3 billion of which was provided by the World Bank and the African Development Fund and the remaining US$2.4billion is owed to many creditor countries, including the US, Germany and South Africa.
These loans were contracted by a series of repressive regimes starting from the 1970s and leading up to Charles Taylor, President of the country prior to 2003.
The G8 were aware they were cutting into resources set aside for countries like Liberia that were yet to enter the tortuous course of their debt relief mechanisms. And yet, this is exactly what is happening in the case of Liberia as donors still squabble as to how to clear Liberia 's arrears to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
To speed up the development efforts of the country the bilateral debt must be cancelled outside the recent debt cancellation initiatives offered to a list of the 40 poorest and most heavily indebted countries. Of these 40, 22 countries have so far availed relief while the remaining others was not able to avail after conditions set of the International Monetary Fund were not fulfilled.
However, to subject the peoples of Liberia to the same terms and conditions is to deny that Liberia's creditors bear a considerable part of the responsibility for fuelling Liberia's suffering and Civil War.
These loans were used to finance the extraction of the country's resources like iron ores and diamonds, the benefits of which went to investors, creditors and brutal regimes, not the people of Liberia . In fact, the Liberian people suffered countless human rights violations like torture, forceful displacements and physical mutilation.
I am in solidarity with the people of Liberia in demanding for the cancellation of its debts. Clearly, these debts are illegitimate and the Liberian people are not responsible for this debt, they did not profit from it and they cannot repay it.
Demanding its cancellation is demanding justice not only from leaders of its repressive government but also from the financial institutions that bankroll the activities of its repressive regimes. (Comments to tao.ssi@gmail.com)
