The future of all of Latin America and the Caribbean is at stake today in Haiti. In this assurance, we, men and women representing social organizations and networks, students, labourers, peasants, labour unionists, feminists, human rights defenders, youth, slum dwellers, cooperativists, producers coming from many countries of the continent such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Santa Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela, and from 9 geographic departments of Haiti (North, Northwest, Northeast, Central Plateau, Artibonite, West, South, Southeast, Nippes), have gathered in Port Au Prince from October 26 to November 2, 2006, invited by Jubilee South/Americas and the Haitian Platform of Advocacy for an Alternative Development,  PAPDA.

During this very intense week, we were able to:

- Exchange our experiences of struggle against debt domination, the international financial institutions (IFIs), free trade, militarization, environmental destruction, the commodification of life and natural resources, privatizations, and war, in the course of a Seminar in which we could affirm and update our analysis and diagnosis on the current moment of the globalized capitalist system, the growth of its destructive violence and its multiple plans such as the Poverty Preduction Strategy Program (PRSP), Puebla Panama Plan, Colombia Plan, Regional Infrastructure Integration in South America (IIRSA), regional or bilateral free trade agreements such as the Central America-US-Dominican Republica Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity Partnership Encouragement bill (HOPE).

- Share information about the context of our countries with numerous Haitian organizations and together deepen our understanding of the current challenges facing Haiti in a Popular Forum that culminated in a massive mobilization in front of the National Palace, the Ministry of Economy and Finances, and the U.S. Consulate, calling for the removal of the MINUSTAH’s troops and the immediate and unconditional cancellation of the illegitimate and odious debt which the IFIs and other bilateral lenders continue to charge Haiti.

- Carry out a regional coordination meeting where we were able to establish a balance of our action in the continent and in the different countries since Jubilee South’s Global Assembly in September 2005 and ratify our principal lines of action through December 2007.

- Meet with Haitian authorities such as Prime Minister Jacques Édouard Alexis, other government ministers, and the Senate Finance Committee, permitting the development of an ample consensus on the immense debt the capitalist powers have with the people of Haiti, and the imperious need to carry out a participatory and integral audit of the country´s debt claims in order to truly establish who owes whom and to support the efforts of the people and the state of Haiti to recover the patrimony taken from them.

In the course of these activities we have been able to reaffirm and establish common programs of action that reinforce our struggles throughout the continent. Among them, we made plans to strengthen the necessary and urgent solidarity with the Haitian people who are living a tragic situation of destruction of their economy and of their institutions due to the policies imposed by the IFIs – including the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Program (PRSP) – and the denial of its sovereignty due to a costly and ieffective occupation by almost 10.000 United Nations troops. It is in an eagerness to share our conclusions and agreements with a view to generating greater support for them that we are emitting the following statement and call to action. 

We declare

1. That the debt claimed of our countries by the International Financial Institutions, the transnational banks, and the imperialist powers of the North is an illegitimate, illegal and odious debt which has been paid many times over.  Moreover, we believe that our peoples are the creditors of enormous historical, social, cultural, and ecological debts, and that the sanctioning of those national and international entities responsible for them, and the restoration and reparation of those debts will play a key role in the reconstruction of our societies.  A concrete and exemplary case is the long history of Haiti’s indebtedness, a debt that began to accrue as a result of the colonial experience and the independence debt imposed by France as a compensation for the loss of its slaves, and which continues even now to accumulate on the basis of the subsequent human, social, financial, ecological, and cultural costs implicit in the proliferation of tax-free zones and other priorities of the Interim Cooperation Framework (ICF) devised and applied by the IFIs and the so called “international donors” in violation of the right of the Haitian peoples to decide and participate  in their own development.  Together with the peoples of Haiti and of the entire South we say: We don’t owe, we won’t pay; we are the creditors.

2. We salute the strength accumulated by the global mobilization and campaigns for life before debt, and their impact on the crisis of legitimacy that now affects the International Financial Institutions and their manner of operating. We salute the decision of the Norwegian government to unilaterally and unconditionally cancel the claims remaining from  their irresponsible loans, and we urge that they restore what was unfairly collected and that other governments follow their example. At the same time we also applaud the work of social organizations in Ecuador and in Norway whose research and pressure were key to achieving this decision.

3. We denounce the debt relief programs devised by the G8 and the IFIs, that just the same as the PRSPs and other “solutions” historically offered by the lenders, have demonstrated their incapacity to resolve the problems of South country indebtedness. Rather, they confine our countries to a vicious model of  indebtedness which increases our nations' dependency and aggravates the vulnerability of our economies. We denounce the growing conversion of external debt claims into internal debt claims, as well as the impact of other modes of indebtedness such as that resulting from policies of trade liberalization and privatization, or from jurisdictional deferments and the acceptance of unfair arbitration processes or debt swaps. The indebtedness of our countries continues to form part of a strategy of accumulation and domination on the part of transnational capital, and we call attention in particular to the role of the IFIs and the system of indebtedness in the current destructive expansion in our countries of the worst extractive and contaminating industries.

4. We salute the great victory of our peoples' mobilizations against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This deadly project was buried in Mar del Plata in November 2005, and George W. Bush was forced to return to Washington without a signed agreement. We denounce the strategies to advance in this same direction through the WTO and sub-regional (like the CAFTA-DR) and bilateral agreements or investment promotion treaties, as well as the inclusion of defense and militarization issues directly into regional trade agreements as in the case of the new negotiations between the USA, Canada, and Mexico. We especially salute the mobilizations of the peoples of Nicaragua and Costa Rica during the last week of October, against the FTAs and the policies of privatization and destruction of public services imposed by the IFIs.

5.  We denounce the proposal of IIRSA (Regional Infrastructure Integration for South America), created as an initiative by the IFIs and big capital; it is not really an alternative of integration.  This initiative responds to the need to create a physical platform from whtih the large corporations can expand their activities and control strategic resources such as energy sources, water nd biodiversity, converting our continent into an export platform and completing the vicious cycle of indebtedness.  There exist alternatives for the integration and infrastructure needs of our region which are less costly to our peoples in social, ecological, as well as financial terms.  Integration must be of and for the people!

6. We denounce the dramatic increase of diverse modes of violence against women and their organizations throughout the continent. Rape as a political instrument multiplies. Women are the first victims of the policies of debt domination, liberalization, privatization, the destruction of public services, and the reversal of fundamental human rights. Mobilization in defense of women’s rights and the establishment of new public policies which prioritize the defense of women constitute a pillar of our movements' action.

7. We condemn the military aggression of the Bush administration and its accomplices against the peoples of the world. We condemn the processes of militarization in our continent, oriented towards the expropriation of strategic resources such as water, energy, and biodiversity as well as the prevention of the processes of popular mobilization which seek to recover our sovereignty and defend our rights. The presence of the military in Paraguay and at the Tri-border area, the new military bases, invasions such as that of Haiti disguised under the umbrella of the UN, the criminalization of our movements, are all part of this offensive of re-militarization in the continent which is one of the axes of the current strategy of domination. We also condemn the situation of colonial occupation which cotinues to affect various peoples in the region, among them French Guyana, Martinica, Puerto Rico, Guadalupe and Curacao. We particularly reject the active involvement of governments and troops from many Latin American countries in the military occupation of Haiti. No to militarization! No to military occupations! No to the presence of the MINUSTAH in Haiti! Long live our peoples’ self-determination!

8. We affirm our deep and active solidarity with the Haitian people, who at the dawn of the 19th Century sought to make human rights a worldwide issue through their spectacular victory over the French army and the yoke of enslavement and their decided support to all freedom struggles in the region. Today the people of Haiti are living under very difficult conditions due to 514 years of invasions and plunder and the application of structural adjustment policies since the end of the '80s.  Our movements and networks are committed in support of the struggle of this courageous people for their second Independence.

9. We salute the recent triumphs of our peoples, such as Evo Morales’s electoral victory that has opened an encouraging process of recovery of their strategic resources for the people of Bolivia, and also the visible support of the Venezuelan people for the Bolivarian process. We salute as well the multiple resistance struggles of indigenous peoples, peasants, women, workers, popular neighbourhood dwellers, and youth who reaffirm our will to put an end to policies of neoliberalism and to build another possible world.

10. We support the new form of resistance which are joining together throughout the continent in opposition the mega economic projects of large-scale natural resource extraction, such as the hydroelectric stations, open-pit mining projects, the monocrop exportation of genetically-modified substances, and hydrocarbon exploitation. Our social organizations, criminalized by the state of virtual military occupation, are resisting these new forms of massive displacement which also bring with them irreversible consequences for the environment, cultures, and peoples of the entire American continent.

11. We denounce imperialist aggression against the people of Cuba. We salute the heroic resistance of this Caribbean people. We denounce the criminal blockade imposed by imperialism for more than 40 years at a high human cost. We are sure that on November 8, the United Nations General Assembly will once again almost unanimously condemn this blockade that is a flagrant and unacceptable violation of international conventions. We demand the immediate release of the five Cuban citizens illegally and unfairly imprisoned for 8 years by the empire. We condemn the plan to intensify the blockade, and the new threats against the Cuban peoples’ sovereignty. Long live  revolutionary and sovereign Cuba!

 Commitments and calls

1. We demand the total and unconditional cancellation of the debt claimed of our countries. We demand that our governments repudiate this illegitimate and odious debt and that they take immediate steps to cease payments. We demand the realization of widespread, participatory audits of the processes of indebtedness in our countries in order to establish how much has been paid in excess and document the enormous historical, social, cultural, and ecological debt contracted with our peoples. We will promote diverse strategies of struggle to resist the intensification of the plunder practised by means of this indebtedness and the policies of the IFIs, and to achieve reparation for the damages which continue to accumulate as a result of 514 years of colonialism and imperialist domination. We will intensify our work to sensitize and educate on the illegitimacy of the debt and the IFIs. We are calling on every one of you to join in this struggle.

2.  We demand, as President Evo Morales did during the last  IADB General Assembly at Belo Horizonte, Brazil,  the immediate, total, and unconditional cancellation of the debt claimed by this regional institution of the 5 most impoverished  countries in the continent (Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, and Guyana) . We will mobilize so that the voices of the social movements in the continent are heard on occasion of the next IADB meeting (programmed for November 17, 2006 in Washington) where this matter will be analyzed, as well as on any other pertinent occasion.

3.  We commit ourselves, in each of our countries, to advance the building of sovereign and mutually helpful financing alternatives, including the development of fair fiscal policies, the restitution and reparation by those responsible for the accumulated debts against our peoples, and cooperation among the countries of the South. In this respect, we are calling on all the peoples of the Continent to mobilize and prepare to participate in the coming Social Summit for Peoples' Integration, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, December 6 - 9, 2006.  It will be a key occasion in this new Bolivia, to define a real integration project based on the rights and strategic interests of the exploited and excluded majorities of our countries. The collective reflection and the new policies oriented to changing power relations in the world economic system, for example withdrawal from or closure of the existing international financial institutions, and the implementing of a solidarity bank of the South, are part of the decisions to be taken in this Summit,  taking special care to insure  that any new arrangements not be a mere reproduction in the South of the same schemes of domination and expoliation that our peoples are suffering today in the hands of the central powers in the North.

4. We call for the development and strengthening of all processes of economic cooperation based on an authentic solidarity. We salute the achievements of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and the Commercial Treaties among Peoples (TPC), and we call for the deepening and expansion of these logics.

5. We salute the resistance and creativity of our peoples through new proposals and innovations. We encourage the strengthening and expansion of the marvellous experiences of solidarity based economies, cooperative movements and worker-recovered and self-managed factories, and we call on all our movements and networks to support and encourage similar processes in each one of our countries.

6. We support  the Continental Vigil for Peace and against Militarization on November 18, 2006, called to denounce the militarization, war and violence that the government of the United States exercises against different peoples throughout the world, and we invite everyone to include in your actions and mobilizations the call for the removal of foreign troops from Haiti.

7. We call for a continental Day of Solidarity with the Struggle of the Haitian people to achieve their second Independence, on December 5, 2006, a key anniversary of the Haitian peasants and students’ resistance against invasions and domination. We invite all networks, campaigns and progressive movements in the continent to carry out significant mobilizations to demand the withdrawal of the MINUSTAH troops from Haitian territory, the total, immediate and unconditional cancellation of the external debt claimed of this country, and the implementation of authentic projects in solidarity with the Haitian people based on their needs, rights, and proposals. We support the struggle initiated by students of the State University of Haiti and various social movements against the presence of foreign troops. We commit ourselves, together with the Haitian social movements, to continue developing this solidarity campaign at the national, regional and international level during 2007.

8. We call for a great mobilization in the continent in support of the VII World Social Forum in Nairobi, from January 20 - 25, 2007. This WSF will be a special occasion to tighten bonds and strengthen networking between social movements fighting against capitalist globalization in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, together with peoples and movements in the North who share the same dream of a dignified life, sovereignty and justice for all. We will join our struggles for the repudiation of illegitimately claimed financial debts  and the recognition, restitution, and reparations for what is owed to us as peoples. In this same spirit, we call on the movements and organizations of the region to actively join in the preparations and realization of the World Day of Mobilization against War and Neoliberalism, to be held in January, 2008. 

Down with the external debt and the plundering of our wealth!

We don´t owe, we won´t pay, we the people are the creditors! 

Down with the military occupation of Haiti!

Down with the yankee military invasion of Iraq,

the aggressions of Israel against Lebanon and the people of Palestine!

Long live the sovereignty of the people! 

Long live revolutionary Cuba and the Bolivarian process!

Long live the solidarity and integration among all oppressed peoples!

Puerto Príncipe, Haiti, November 2, 2006