> hey listers, what's the deal with the HIPC (hiccup?) thing, is the threat
> of reneging on debt so great, greater than the threat that wiping debt can
> serve as a bad example to all those lazy do-nothing, want-a-handout types?
> can i party now, or should i wait to read the fine print?
HIPC is a joke. A sick one, at that.
HIPC involves only talks about that portion of countries' debt which they will never get around to paying back anyway (i.e. countries which are included in the HIPC proposals - like Mozambique - are so in debt that you could do away with some of their debt without changing anything substantial - they're still going to be in a debt trap), and tied to HIPC is an imposition of even more IMF 'conditionalities'.
HIPC talks also go around and around in circles for ever. I can't recall whether any HIPC debt relief has yet come about - it might have, by now. I know, however, that a few months ago there was still no action.
Most 'Third World Debt' is of such small quantities that a write-off would mean almost nothing to the lenders. Dragging things out through HIPC is just another way of maintaining lendor control.
Peter
-- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. - Karl Marx
NOTE: I do not speak for the HGMP or the MRC.