ICSW

Your Excellencies, Sirs/Madams, citizens
and officials of Europe,

     It is a distinctive honour and privilege to write this letter to talk to you about the aim of our trip and our suffering - we the children and the youth of Africa. We put our trust in you.

      First of all, we bring you our greetings - the sweetest, the most adorable and respectful greetings of life. To this end, please be our support and help, we the people of Africa. Otherwise whom shall we turn to for help? We beseech you, come to our rescue. Think of your love for your beautiful continent, your people, your family, above all your dear friends and your children that you love so dearly like life. Moreover, think of the love and kindness of the creator “God”, The Almighty who`s given you the good experiences, riches and power to build and organise our continent so that it may become the most beautiful and admirable friend of all.

     Sirs/Madams, citizens and officials of Europe we are appealing to your solidarity and kindness to come to our rescue. Please, help us. We are enormously suffering in Africa. Help us, we have problems and those problems include the abuse of the children`s rights. The problems we have are: war, disease, malnutrition, etc. The abuse of children`s rights is at the level of education. It is in the public schools in Africa in general and in Guinea in particular that we are lacking better education and quality teaching and learning. It`s only in the private schools that people can have better education and enjoy quality teaching and learning, but it requires quite a lot of money and our parents cannot afford it because they are poor. Our parents are faced with a difficult choice: feed us or send us to schools of sports such as football, basketball, etc.. Therefore, we African children and youth are asking you to set up an efficient organisation to help with the development of Africa. Thus, if we are sacrificing ourselves and putting our lives in jeopardy it is because we are suffering too much in Africa and we need your help to fight against poverty and bring war to an end in Africa. However, our greatest need is education. So we are asking you to help us study to become like you in Africa.

     Finally, we beseech you to forgive us for daring to write such a letter to you. This letter does not tread upon the great respect we owe you as the European authorities. Also, please don`t forget that it is to you that we have to expose the weakness of our strength in Africa.

Letter is edited from the original reproduced by AFP, Brussels, 4th August 1999.

     It is the fact that the boys, young and ill-educated, were willing to pay the ultimate price to try and alert the world to the plight of the African continent that is so shocking. And equally so that in the UK only one national newspaper reported the story.

      The plight of these two boys is sadly not uncommon in the most impoverished countries of the world. The latest United Nations Human Development Report reveals that the gap between the poorest and richest in the world is wider than it has ever been, with 20% of the world’s population in developed countries enjoying 86% of the income. Also, 17 of the 20 poorest countries in the world have, according to the World Bank, an unsustainable debt burden. The effects of debt are evident everywhere. Growing debt service squeezes out spending in critical areas such as health and clean water.

Creditors must do more

     The Jubilee 2000 international movement is attempting to narrow the gap between rich and poor by calling for the debts of approximately 50 of the poorest countries to be cancelled by the millennium. Most of these countries have lower per capita incomes today than they had a decade ago – they won’t have much to celebrate on the 31st December 1999. These countries need massive debt cancellation – so that instead of diverting funds to the West in the form of unproductive debt repayments, they can use precious resources for productive investment in health, education, sanitation and clean water. Jubilee 2000 wants to give a billion people in the poorest countries a reason to celebrate with the rest of the world.

     The movement, now active in over 50 countries, has succeeded in raising awareness about the debt crisis and recently secured a commitment from the G7 leaders in Cologne to cancel up to $100 billion of debt. Although not enough, this was a significant step. But it is essentially only cancelling debt that is not being repaid, and therefore carries no cost to the creditor as the money will never be repaid. If the creditors want to release new funds that can be diverted into productive expenditure they must go further.

     But the Cologne announcement had another sting in its tail. Tied in to debt cancellation was a strengthening of the IMF’s grip on the poorest countries. In order to qualify for debt relief, countries currently have to comply for at least six years with an IMF-approved economic reform programme. After the Cologne debt deal, they will have the additional threat of having that debt relief withdrawn if they do not continue to comply with IMF reform programmes for an unspecified number of years. “Indebted nations will now have to jump over even more bureaucratic hurdles and conditions than before, even to be considered for debt cancellation. This is precisely the form of slavery that we in Jubilee 2000 so roundly condemn.” said Archbishop Ndungane of CapeTown, patron of the Jubilee 2000 movement.

Alternatives to the IMF

     Kwame Nkrumah, in his speech to the United Nations in 1960 said: “the problem of Africa is a wide and diversified one. But its true solution lies in the application of one principle, namely, the right of a people to rule themselves.” Today, the people of Africa and Latin America are fighting for freedom from the oppression of debt bondage, from rule by foreign creditors. Like Americans in the 18th century, they are fighting for the right to rule themselves.

     Jubilee 2000 argues that the IMF is not an appropriate body to negotiate the conditions for debt relief. As agent to the creditors, it focuses too narrowly on economic growth and export promotion, so that countries maximise hard currency earnings to repay their debts. The downside is often a cut in social spending which harms the poorest in society. As in domestic bankruptcy procedures, Ann Pettifor, Director of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition in the UK argues that instead of the IMF an independent arbiter should assess how much debt should be cancelled and how the proceeds should be spent. She has proposed that a ‘concordat’ be signed and agreed by representatives of the debtor and creditor, and presided over by an independent chair.

     “The independent Debt Review Body (DRB) would act as a binding arbitration panel. The process for setting up and maintaining the DRB need not be cumbersome. It requires only the confidence of the debtor governments and organs of civil society on the one hand, and creditors on the other. The DRB will by these means encourage and strengthen democratic institutions and economic literacy in debtor nations. It will also encourage public scrutiny, monitoring and accountability of any new loans taken out as a way of preventing the country from falling into a new debt trap. If a government defaults on its obligations then there must be harsh penalties. In particular, if the DRB concludes that the concordat has been violated, then new loans and aid payments should be withheld.”

Jubilee 2000 movements in the South are insistent that this is where they come in. As well as calling for debt cancellation many southern movements in Uganda and Zambia are primarily focused on careful monitoring of government expenditure. Dr. Peter Henriot, a political scientist and co-ordinator of the Jesuit Centre Debt Project based in Lusaka, Zambia emphasises the importance of open negotiation that includes civil society:

     “Is it any more realistic to think that the current arrangements of debt relief - with negotiations from greatly unequal positions, conditions imposed from outside without local ownership, and failure to meet truly effective and equitable relief through half-measures – is likely to turn around an international debt situation that is economically untenable, politically destabilising, socially harmful and ethically unacceptable? Debt relief that does benefit the poor in Zambia is not only necessary, but it is also possible. Creditors should exercise the political will to co-operate with the forces of civil society within Zambia to make that possibility a reality.”

     In Uganda the Debt Network recently succeeded in pushing Parliament to temporarily block a foreign loan for a controversial electricity project. Ann Kamya, Campaign Manager for the Ugandan Jubilee 2000 campaign said “This campaign has uniquely engaged civil society through a variety of activities. They are now demanding increased activity in their respective districts. Civil society is becoming a force to be reckoned with and is rightfully demanding effective debt relief as well as appropriate utilisation of government revenues, debt relief funds and other resources.”

     These are just two examples of a growing movement of ordinary people in the South who are increasingly exercising their power over their governments. Powerful creditors in the West, including the G7 leaders, also have the power and means to cancel these debts and make the millennium more than just a passing of time. But they need to be encouraged to do so. That’s why Jubilee 2000 supporters from around the world are asking the leaders to meet again before the millennium to agree to an historic deal on debt.

     Just like Yaguine and Fode from Guinea, many ordinary, desperately poor people in the South are suffering as they struggle for a decent life. They are central to the debt campaign. Let’s not let their voices fall on deaf ears. Let’s drop the debt in time for the new Millennium.

Angela Travis is Operations Manager with Jubilee 2000 Coalition, 1 Rivington St, London EC2A 3DT. Tel: 44-171-739-1000. Fax: 44-171-739-2300.
Email: atravis@jubilee2000uk.org.
Further information on the Jubilee 2000 movement can be found on their website: www.jubilee2000uk.org