[stop-imf] [Fwd: [j2000-grassroots] Jubilee responds to Bush Speech on Development

[Robert Weissman]

For immediate release:  Thursday, March 14, 2002
Press contact:  Marie Clarke, 202-783-0215, 202-255-7849-cell


Bush’s One-Liner on Debt Won’t Appease Jubilee USA


Today at the Inter-American Development Bank, President Bush boldly declared
“Many have rallied to drop the debt, I say rally to stop the debt.”

In a speech on global development, this was the President’s only reference
to the debt crisis that continues to drain more than $13 billion out of the
African continent every year.  Half of African nations currently spend more
on debt than health for their citizens.

“It is technically impossible to stop the debt without dropping the debt,”
said Marie Clarke, National Coordinator of Jubilee USA, in response to Bush’
s one-liner.  “Even if countries from this day forward accrue no new debt,
interest rates on existing debt alone will swamp the development boat before
it leaves port.”

Bush announced an ambitious goal to double the size of the world’s poorest
economies within a decade. “If the President expects to see his dream
realized, he needs to reach beyond economic fundamentalism that adheres
blindly to free-markets and the failed reform policies that have been
imposed for the last twenty years,” asserted Ms. Clarke.

“The economic medicine prescribed by the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund for indebted countries is often worse than the disease it is
supposed to treat,” said Ms. Clarke.  Forced privatization of water,
fees on
public schools and health clinics, deregulation of business --all this has
become part of the non-debatable dogma of the reforms Bush alluded to today.

In a press briefing after the President’s speech, Bono of U2, a long-time
debt relief advocate, criticized this reform agenda and conditionalities
imposed by Washington. “Conditionalities should be bottom up, not imposed
and micromanaged by bureaucracy in Washington.  But, we do agree in assuring
democracy, accountability and transparency to the people of developing
countries,” he said.

Jubilee USA Network is the successor organization to Jubilee 2000 in the
United States.  The Network is made up of more than 60 faith-based, labor
and citizens’ organization and continues to lead the debt cancellation
movement in America.

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http://www.jubileeusa.org/press_room/bush_speech.pdf