Carl, this may please you. Check the AIDC website at http:\\aidc.org.za for some of SA's best work on int'l debt, especially the apartheid debt which we vainly try to toss into the equation for moral purposes and to better ground the churchy folk with the "odious debt" doctrine...
This is from AIDC director Brian Ashley; please circulate it as you like.
Subject: Launch of Jubilee 2000 South Africa Dear Friends Please find a copy of the draft founding declaration of Jubilee 2000 SA. We hope this document will be formally adopted at the public launch of Jubilee 2000. The launch of Jubilee 2000 is scheduled for Monday 31 August in Durban at the time of the Non Aligned Movement Summit. Please feel free to make suggestions on improving the draft as it has not yet been absolutely finalised. We would like to draw up a list of individuals and organisations who endorse this statement. Please contact us (details below) if you endorse the statement. Yours in solidarity -- Brian Ashley Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) Tel (021) 4485197 Fax (021) 478583 E-mail Aidc at iafrica.com Home-page http://aidc.org.za P O Box 1139 Woodstock 7924 Cape Town =======================================================================
Founding Declaration of the South African Jubilee 2000 Campaign
The poor of the world are subsidising the rich. For every $1 given in aid, $1.31is squeezed out of Africa in debt repayments to the rich counties. The largest immediate obstacle to sustainable development throughout the third world is this debt bondage. Billions of people are affected by it. Life for them is nasty, brutish and short. The debt condemns generations still unborn.
The debts caused by apartheid compounds this outrage. Denounced as a crime against humanity, apartheid is now forcing its victims to pay twice over for their suffering. Apartheid devastated the whole of southern Africa not just South Africa. Apartheid sponsored wars throughout the entire region. Death, suffering and destruction followed this illegal intervention which forced our neighbours into heavy debt. Today's efforts to recover from apartheid are being obstructed throughout South Africa and Southern Africa by another apartheid legacy the swallowing up of huge amounts of money in the form of debt repayment.
This injustice must be rectified. The struggle against apartheid continues until all apartheid's debts have been cancelled in Southern Africa. The world-wide Jubilee 2000 campaign, inspired by the biblical Jubilee principle whereby every 50 years there should be a new beginning including the cancellation of debt. Thus Jubilee 2000 is calling for the cancellation of debt in the Third world by the year 2000. This campaign offers an unprecedented opportunity to free our region from the shackles of debt bondage.
The rich and powerful countries have cancelled debts on numerous occasions this century - both to each other and the debts of compliant allies. They have done so for narrow political purposes hitherto. What is now required is for them to act on the Jubilee principle with social and humanitarian renewal as their inspiration.
Democratic South Africa has shown them the way. Notwithstanding its own financial constraints, it cancelled the odious debts of Namibia incurred under South African occupation. In so doing the ANC government did not consider whether unilateral debt cancellation could be `afforded'; nor did it impose adjustments or other preconditions on its neighbour.
We call upon the rich countries to follow the example of the new South African government to write off the odious loans given to dictators who have enriched themselves at the expense of their people.
We hereby dedicate ourselves to the Jubilee 2000 Afrika Campaign which was established in Accra in April 1998 "for the elimination of the debt burden so that Afrika will have the opportunity of harnessing its human and natural resources for development and transformation as we enter the 21st millenium".
To this end we resolve to launch the South African Jubilee 2000 Campaign at the Non Aligned Movement Summit in Durban 28 August - 3 September1998. =======================================================================
> Two potential problems: the creditors of the world would go nuts, and call
> in every marginal loan, and the American masses might fear for their mutual
> funds should this debt forgiveness thing get out of hand.
> Doug
Doug, what about an El Barzon for yankee consumer debtors as part of
J2000?