WE ARE NO DEBTORS! WE ARE CREDITORS OF A HISTORICAL, SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DEBT!
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ISTANBUL JS STATEMENT - Justice demands Reparations, Not More Illegitimate Debt: |
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Wednesday, 21 October 2009 |
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JUBILEE SOUTH STATEMENT
Istanbul, October 7, 2009
Justice demands Reparations, Not More Illegitimate Debt:
The South has already paid for the crisis –the North must return what is
owed
The discussions and decisions of the IMF and World Bank here in
Istanbul, similar to those of the G20 at their recent summit in
Pittsburgh, offer scant hope of solution for the new difficulties facing
peoples and countries throughout the global South as a result of the
present convergence of social, financial, economic, food, fuel and
climate crises. Their responses are focused primarily on getting back to
“business as usual” as quickly as possible, rather than getting to the
root causes and moving toward the creation of new financial, economic,
and political institutions and systems that can embody a transformed
social and ecological culture.
The peoples of the South will no longer pay; it is time for real change.
As Jubilee South, we reject in particular, the decisions taken by the
self-appointed global leadership of the G20 –an elite club set up by the
G7 to divert attention from its role and responsibilities in provoking
the crisis - to increase funds and strengthen the role of the very same
economic and geopolitical paradigm, governments, IFIs, and corporations
whose policies and practices are at the heart of this and other crises.
A mere reform of the World Bank and IMF’s systems of governance,
changing the color of their faces or bringing quotas more into line with
the present weight of different economies so as to better reflect the
still undemocratic “one dollar-one vote” rule, or promises - until now
unimplemented - to flexibilize rather than end conditionalities, will
neither change the logic and interests that govern these institutions
nor deal with the critical issues of responsibility, impunity, and
reparations.
Such responses are based, furthermore, on the false belief that
injecting finance into the economies of the South, in particular via the
mechanism of new lending, will solve the problems, ignoring history and
the causes and impacts of the previous financial and debt crises. Such
lending must be recognized and rejected as illegitimate, in so much as
those who are offering the loans are doing so in contravention of their
obligations to provide compensation and reparations for the damages
their policies and actions have provoked.
The peoples of the South have already paid in advance for these crises
and it is now time that those who have reaped the benefits repay their
debts, be they financial, ecological, social or historical. Sovereign,
democratic control by the peoples and countries of the South over their
economies and resources, together with a profound redistribution of
wealth – reversing the trend of concentration now even further
exacerbated in the context of the present crises – and the reorientation
of global economic thinking and organization are the only solid bases
for recovery, stability, and indeed, global survival.
In this spirit, Jubilee South stresses the following calls to
governments and international institutions:
Immediate action is needed to prevent a renewed South country debt
crisis and to resolve existing debt conflicts:
* Stop collection and repayment, repudiate and/or cancel illegitimate
and unpayable debts of the South without conditionalities, serving
justice and enabling South countries to use the resources they generate
to meet the priority needs of their populations and of nature;
* Increase the provision of policy space and financial resources by the
North to the South, in recognition of the North’s obligation to provide
compensation to the victims of the crises it has provoked as well as
restitution and reparations for its historical, ecological, social, and
economic debts to the peoples and countries of the South
* Responses to the financial, economic, climate, fuel, and food crises
should not generate new debt in the South.
* Recognize the illegitimacy of new lending to the South in response to
the crises provoked by the North;
* Reaffirm and promote the sovereign rights of South countries to
repudiate or stop paying debts, including those claims whose continued
servicing would provoke undue hardship and/or violate human and
environmental rights;
* Initiate participatory and comprehensive public debt audit processes
in order to dilucidate who indeed owes who and to further substantiate
claims for reparations;
* End the power of the IFIs, which should stop their operations and
interventions in South countries. Rather than increasing quotas and
begging for a seat at the table, South governments should join together
in withdrawing from these institutions and creating a new financial
architecture based on democratic principles of sovereignty, equity,
solidarity, and complementarity;
* Intervention in globalized financial markets including strict
regulation of capital flows, restriction on speculative trading –
including in particular in food commodities - , shutting down tax havens
and prohibiting hedge funds.
Progress should be made in promoting and implementing real alternatives.
* Priority should be given to creating and strengthening regional
institutions and processes of integration such as the South Bank,
regional reserve funds, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
(ALBA)/Peoples’ Trade Agreements and other processes aimed at
strengthening ties and integration in the South and not reproducing
asymmetries of power as is the North-South logic.
* Alternative financial and economic systems and institutions should
develop new sources of financing, moving away from the culture of
consumption, usury, accumulation, and debt that is at the heart of the
capitalist system. The notion of illimited growth must also be
challenged, acknowledging that there are no alternatives to the limited
capacity of nature to sustain itself.
Global solutions require global participation.
* Decision-making processes cannot continue to be left in the hands of
the same countries and institutions whose policy decisions are largely
responsible for the present crises.
* The peoples and countries hardest hit must have a place at the table
where global responses are being discussed and in the new institutions
and response mechanisms that are created.
Octuber 2009-.
Jubilee South is a global network of movements and organizations in
Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, fighting to overcome debt
domination and build alternatives of equity and justice.
Global Secretariat:
Piedras 730, (1070) Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.jubileesouth.org
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