Activists call for end to Haitian debt
IMF criticised for offering loans rather than grants
Campaigners across the world are calling for the total cancellation of all Haiti’s debts following the earthquake that has killed up to 200,000 people in the country. Christian Aid has launched a petition to the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, urging him to push for full debt cancellation. They tell him that the UK can ‘lead the world by giving Haiti a fighting chance for the future’. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is under fire for extending further loans to Haiti. The Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) described the IMF’s decision as ‘completely inappropriate’, saying that Haiti needs grants, not loans. They added that IMF and similar institutions ‘bore a good degree of responsibility for the poor state of Haiti’s economy today’.
A number of international observers have noted that, while an earthquake of this magnitude would cause devastation anywhere, the trauma for Haitians has been made much worse by their country’s poverty, weak infrastructure and inadequate building conditions.
It was only last year that around two-thirds of Haiti’s debt was cancelled, amounting to $1.2 billion. However, the country still owes debts of $890 million, mostly to the IMF.
‘Haiti’s dire poverty has been built on centuries of injustice perpetrated against the country by the rich world’, said JDC’s director, Nick Dearden, ‘It is time for our part of the world to pay its debt to Haiti. That means full cancellation of all of Haiti’s debts and large grant funding.’
Nick Dearden told the Friend that Friends and others could make a difference by emailing the chancellor to express their alarm that aid given to Haiti could be undermined by the IMF adding to the country’s debts.
The IMF loans come with conditions. They include raising prices for electricity, refusing pay rises for any public sector employees except those making the minimum wage and keeping inflation as low as possible. In 1995, the IMF forced Haiti to slash its rice tariff, resulting in increased imports from the USA, which has been blamed for poverty amongst Haitian rice farmers.
Meanwhile, Quakers are continuing to contribute to international relief efforts in Haiti. Members of Evangelical Friends Church in Canton, Ohio have travelled to Haiti to support local Friends. They report that they are managing to distribute safe drinking water to people in the west of the country.
