Haitians Organize to Cancel Debt

Grassroots International’s partners in Haiti have joined with their Global South counterparts to demand an end to forcing countries to pay exorbitant debt to Northern countries whose failed economic policies helped cause the crisis in the first place. 

The following is a summary of the Declaration of the Assembly of Movements struggling to overcome Debt domination put forth in Belem, Brazil: 

The Assembly stressed the threat of a new debt crisis as a result of the current crises, which are already generating a wave of new indebtedness and worsening repayment conditions. It also emphasized the urgent need to reject the exclusivity of the G20 and its unacceptable proposals to strengthen the power of the IFIs and transnationalized financial capital. The Assembly highlighted the growing convergence among anti-debt movements in the International South-North Campaign against Illegitimate Debt and the historic breakthrough achieved through Ecuador’s comprehensive debt audit, the beginning of a similar audit in Paraguay, and Ecuador’s decision not to continue paying some of the debt it claims to be illegitimate. In terms of global priorities, the Assembly calls on all movements to join in the fight for the non-payment of illegitimate debts and the restoration and reparation of historic, ecological and social debts. The Assembly also makes a call to participate and support, in particular: the undertaking of comprehensive Debt Audits; the Week of Action against the G20, War, and Crisis (March 28 to April 4), the Peoples’ Tribunal on Ecological Debt (October 2009); and the Week of Global Action Against Debt and IFIs (October 7 -15, 2009), including the Day of struggle in defence of the Pachamama on October 12. The Assembly also calls on governments and movements in the region to put into operations the South Bank and other alternatives that can contribute to the recovery of financial sovereignty in the South.