Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The debt burden on developing countries is a symptom of the disease at the core of the international financial institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The role of these two anti-democratic bodies in world politics must be challenged. My party demands the overhaul, reform and democratisation of the IMF and the World Bank. These institutions and the interests they represent are responsible for the debt crisis. Every action they take is designed to benefit developed states at the expense of developing states. They were designed for this purpose and they are structured in a way which subjugates the interests of the developing countries to that of the powerfully developed states, in particular, the USA.

These institutions have played a major role in the growth of inequality in the world. The voting rights within both these bodies are stacked in favour of developed states and completely against developing countries. The selection procedure for the IMF and World Bank leaders are totally undemocratic as the presidency of the World Bank is always reserved for a North American. Voting rights within the IMF are based on the entry fee or share bought by a country when it joins. This share is calculated according to its economic and geopolitical importance. The number of voting rights to which each country is entitled is based on its share value. It is unacceptable that the USA has a blocking minority vote.

Many developing states burdened by debt are within their rights under international law to refuse to pay these debts on the basis that the debt is odious, that is, where a despotic power contracts a debt not according to the needs and interests of the state. The notion of odious debt was invoked in Cuba in 1898, Costa Rica in 1922, Namibia in 1995 and Mozambique in 1999. When the notion is successfully invoked, the state debt becomes the personal debt of those responsible during the dictatorship and cannot engage the financial resources of the state. The fact that it is open to developing countries to pursue such a course must be highlighted and promoted by Governments concerned with the issue of debt burden on developing countries. This State should actively encourage such states to invoke the notion of odious debt where possible. People must understand the reason certain states will be opposed to the abolition of world debt. It is because to them, it would amount to giving up a tool of control and subjugation, giving up the method by which they carry out the economic colonisation of developing states. It is the method by which they force their liberal economic agenda on a large part of the world with disastrous consequences in terms of poverty, hunger and disease.

Citizens of developing countries are disempowered as economic policy is decided by the IMF and the World Bank. This is done by way of the structural adjustment programmes which are imposed on indebted countries and which have dramatically aggravated the problems facing those states. Their central aim is to impose economic policies approved by Washington upon developing countries. Unfortunately, as is usual, we do not have enough time for this important debate. Debt cancellation must be accompanied by the ending of structural adjustment programmes and the thorough reform of the international financial systems as nothing less will end this scourge which plagues so many people in so many states around the globe at this time.

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