"Repaying the debt is an essential obstacle to satisfying basic human needs, such as access to clean water, decent food, basic health care, primary education, decent accomodation, and satisfactory infrastructure. Without any doubt, the satisfcation of basic human needs must take priority over all other considerations, be they geopolitical ot financial. From a moral point of view, the rights of creditors, shareholders, or speculators are insignificant in comparison with the fundamental rights of five billion citizens.
Debt is one of the main mechanisms through which a new form of economic colonization operates to the detriment of the developing countries. It is one more brick in the edifice of historic abuses, also carried out by the rich countries: slavery, pillage of raw materials and cultural goods, extermination of indigenous populations, and colonial servitude. The time is overdue to replace the logic of domination by the logic of redistribution of wealth in the name of justice.
The G8, the IMF, the World Bank, and the Paris Club impose their own truth, their own justice, where they call the tune. The time has come to put an end to this phoney justice of conquerors and oppressors.
Let us risk a comparison. The activists who fought against slavery were moved by an ideal of justice and were fiercely opposed to this abominable practice. The time came when the balance of power shifted and the abolition of slavery became unavoidable, despite the forcasts of economic disaster made by those who defended slavery. In the case of the external public debt of the developing countries and the turn of events since 1980, the situation is comparable (though not identical). The debt has become a mighty mechanism of domination. The struggle of citizens revolted by domination and its human ravages must be waged even more intensely if the diktat is to be broken."
Demanding the total cancellation of the public external debt for all developing countries is central to today's abolitionist movement. Just as was the case for slavery, cancellation must be complete, for slavery cannot be amended, nor can it be reduced: it has to be abolished."
— Toussaint and Millet, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, 2010, pp. 239-41, 2010
Good. However, without overthrowing the existing allies of the Western ruling classes, i.e. the bourgoeis regimes of the poor countries, there is no way that the people in the poor countries could cancel the public debt. For example, a future Arab revolution must combine the political and the economic in order to break free from many yokes of domination, including the yoke of debt as
a mechanism of domination. It has to overthrow the existing regimes, be they a weak bourgeois-liberal like the Tunisian regime, or monarchy and petrodollar autocracies (e.g. the UAE and Saudi Arabia) which are part of the international finance circuit and complicit with imperialism in enslaving their fellow brothers and sisters, or "secular" capitalist dictatorships (e.g. Egypt, Algeria, Syria), to be able to control the wealth the region has and to employ it for real development and the basic needs of its citizens.
Debt is one of the main mechanisms through which a new form of economic colonization operates to the detriment of the developing countries. It is one more brick in the edifice of historic abuses, also carried out by the rich countries: slavery, pillage of raw materials and cultural goods, extermination of indigenous populations, and colonial servitude. The time is overdue to replace the logic of domination by the logic of redistribution of wealth in the name of justice.
The G8, the IMF, the World Bank, and the Paris Club impose their own truth, their own justice, where they call the tune. The time has come to put an end to this phoney justice of conquerors and oppressors.
Let us risk a comparison. The activists who fought against slavery were moved by an ideal of justice and were fiercely opposed to this abominable practice. The time came when the balance of power shifted and the abolition of slavery became unavoidable, despite the forcasts of economic disaster made by those who defended slavery. In the case of the external public debt of the developing countries and the turn of events since 1980, the situation is comparable (though not identical). The debt has become a mighty mechanism of domination. The struggle of citizens revolted by domination and its human ravages must be waged even more intensely if the diktat is to be broken."
Demanding the total cancellation of the public external debt for all developing countries is central to today's abolitionist movement. Just as was the case for slavery, cancellation must be complete, for slavery cannot be amended, nor can it be reduced: it has to be abolished."
— Toussaint and Millet, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, 2010, pp. 239-41, 2010
Good. However, without overthrowing the existing allies of the Western ruling classes, i.e. the bourgoeis regimes of the poor countries, there is no way that the people in the poor countries could cancel the public debt. For example, a future Arab revolution must combine the political and the economic in order to break free from many yokes of domination, including the yoke of debt as
a mechanism of domination. It has to overthrow the existing regimes, be they a weak bourgeois-liberal like the Tunisian regime, or monarchy and petrodollar autocracies (e.g. the UAE and Saudi Arabia) which are part of the international finance circuit and complicit with imperialism in enslaving their fellow brothers and sisters, or "secular" capitalist dictatorships (e.g. Egypt, Algeria, Syria), to be able to control the wealth the region has and to employ it for real development and the basic needs of its citizens.
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