All About Debts

It is time to stop making Africa pay for its own oppression

Date 11/14/2002 12:00 AM | Topic: Opinion

"Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom -cuz all I ever had - redemption songs, these songs of freedom." - Bob Marley

As an African, studying in the U.S., I am always amazed by American perceptions of the "Dark continent." I am constantly asked ridiculous questions like what the exchange rate between "Zim dollars" and "human dollars" is or if I own a lion or even if I am married to some polygamous old fart back home. However, the most prominent question is, "You must be super rich, right? Because how on earth can you afford to be here?"

Well folks - I am not "super rich," but it is true that Africans are the poorest of the world's poor. Three out of five are chronically malnourished. Twenty-two of the world's 36 poorest countries are in Africa. Eighty percent of the continent's population has no access to adequate health services and only one in four has safe water to drink.

At independence, Africa's second liberation, she was the least developed, the least industrialized and the least secure place in which to be born. This was the result of 300 years of foreign domination and about one hundred years of colonial rule. Yet, optimism prevailed in Africa. Today, famine, drought, refugees and civil war are the continent's bitter harvest. With Africa's bountiful human and natural resources one wonders, why is Africa so poor?

The greatest barrier to economic recovery is the overwhelming debt that amounts to about $230 billion dollars. Thirty-three of Sub-Saharan Africa's 44 countries are designated heavily indebted countries by the World Bank. The World Bank received $1.9 billion dollars more in repayments from the Third World than it lent out in 1993.

In 1995, the world's indebted low-income countries paid $1 billion more to the International Monetary Fund than they received from it.

Africa pays $200 million in debt repayments every week, and for every $1 given in aid to third world countries, $9 comes back in debt service.

Africa spends four times more on interest payments on debt than on its healthcare and, IMF policy of demanding Africa to pay back interest on loans results in the death of a million children a year.

Much of the debt accumulated by African nations was built up in the 1970s, a time of reckless lending by banks and international agencies to undemocratic governments. The creditors were aware of the corrupt governments they were lending money to and how this money would even be used to systematically suppress the people.

The IMF and World Bank have imposed "structural adjustment programs" since the 1980s that mandate mass layoffs, sharp reductions in credit, increased taxes and higher interest rates, cuts in spending on health and education and currency devaluation.

These programs have failed. Since their imposition, the external debt burden of sub-Saharan Africa has increased by nearly 400 percent, debt servicing for the region represents about 20 percent of its export income and Africa spends more on debt interest payments than on healthcare.

There is an international law known as "odious debt"- when debts are imposed upon the people without their consent. The U.S. argued this law when Cuba was recaptured from Spain in 1898 when the Spanish demanded that the U.S. repay Cuba's debts. The doctrine that "odious debts" are not the responsibility of the people and successor governments was subsequently enshrined in international law.

The need for its cancellation has been recognized for many years. There is capacity for this to occur; the reason why it has not happened is continuing dynamics of exploitative power and impoverishment. The World Bank and IMF are using the crisis to force compliance with expanded private ownership and the continued exploitation of resources. The Economist, (8.9.92) reported that an internal memo leaked from the World Bank read: "Move toxic industry to the third world; they are worth less to the global economy and die young anyway."

I have hopes for a free Africa- but as it stands, my country, and thus myself, owe $625 million and every day I live, learn and work goes towards paying this money I have never seen. Forty-five African nations share four percent of World Bank votes and the U.S. has 17 percent- So won't you help me sing, my song for freedom?

The debt must be dropped and globalization must work for all.

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Danai Mupotsa
Chips columnist

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