Cancel the Debt

dublin | anti-capitalism | event notice Wednesday January 26, 2005 01:40 by Globalise Resistence 087 6490261

Protest at visit of World Bank President to Dublin

Globalise Resistence are calling on all groups to support the protest called for Sunday 30th Jan 6pm at the Shelbourne Hotel where the Wolfensohn will be attending a reception! It'll be up to all of us to give him the welcome he really deserves. Bring lots of noise!

CANCEL THE DEBT
PROTEST AT WORLD BANK PRESIDENT

The recent Tsunami has brought the plight of Asia to the world’s attention. Governments around the world have pledged money to relieve the crisis. But many of these same countries have been draining desperately needed resources for years from Asia through demands for debt repayment. The countries hardest hit, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, together paid a massive $50 billion in debt payments in 2002.

Sri Lanka, a poor country of 19 million people paid out a staggering $753 million in debt payments in 2002. Indonesia is also severely indebted, owing a massive $132 billion. It's debt was run up by Suharto’s corrupt and repressive regime since l966. The World Bank has admitted that a third of the loans it made to the Suharto regime was used for weapons purchases. Today Indonesia pays ten times as much on debt servicing as it does on health.

Rich countries have only granted a 'debt moratorium' to countries affected by the tsunami, meaning countries would not have to make debt payments during the period of the moratorium. But this is just a breathing space and is not a solution to the problem of unpayable debt which countries already carry and will continue to carry after the moratorium. It needs to be remembered that in the region affected by the tsunami, 3 million children die every year from preventable diseases, and that this situation is likely to continue even after the immediate effects of the disaster have disappeared.

The IMF and World Bank do have the resources to cancel all the debt owed to them by the poorest countries. The report clearly shows that rather than being poverty stricken as they pretend, the IMF and World Bank are hugely profitable organisations. The World Bank profits have increased from $1.2bn in l996 to $5.3bn in 2003

JOIN THE PROTEST
James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, is due to be in Dublin from 30th January to 1st February.

The Structural Adjustment Policies of the World Bank and IMF have had devastating effects on the lives of millions of people around the world. These policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF force governments to divert money away from social and public spending and into debt repayment and compliance is a condition of ensuring new loans.

Wolfensohn visit to Dublin is part of the public relations response by the World Bank to its poor image problem. The World Bank has been a major target of the anti-capitalist movement in recent years most notably in Prague in 2000 where protesters forced the IMF/World Bank conference to be cut short, and in Barcelona where in 2001 the mere announcement of planned demonstrations caused the canceling of a World Bank summit.

Join the Protest to call for the Cancellation of the Debt 30th January, 6pm Shelbourne Hotel

FACTS AND FIGURES

A quarter of the world’s population, 1.3 billion people, live in severe poverty...

Nearly 800 million people do not get enough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnourished. More than a third of children are malnourished.

In industrial countries more than 100 million people live below the poverty line, more than 5 million people are homeless and 37 million are jobless.

Of the world’s 23 million people living with HIV/AIDS more than 93% live in developing countries.

More than 840 million adults are illiterate - 538 million of them are women.

Around 2 million children died as a result of armed conflict in the last decade.

In developing countries 160 million pre-school children are underweight.

1.2 billion people live without access to safe drinking water.

110 million landmines lie undetonated in 68 countries.

Today’s society has the resources to eradicate poverty...

The net wealth of the 10 richest billionaires is $ 133 billion, more than 1.5 times the total national income of the least developed countries.

The cost of eradicating poverty is 1% of global income.

Effective debt relief to the 20 poorest countries would cost $ 5.5 billion - equivalent to the cost of building EuroDisney.

Providing universal access to basic social services and transfers to alleviate income poverty would cost $ 80 billion, less than the net worth of the seven richest men in the world.

(Figures supplied by the United Nation Development Programme)