ouder
and ever more justified the cry rises to forgive, or to at least alleviate, the
burden of the Debt that poor countries carry so that they may have a new chance
on life. Indeed, an unbearable
burden, fruit of failed policies of the 1970’s, has fallen back on the
shoulders of the weaker ranks of the world’s population.
Something is changing, however, just as the spring in the tiny seed,
quiet and certain of victory, hidden under the wintry earth yet already more
powerful that the darkness and the cold of despair.
On the occasion of the Jubilee Year 2000, the Church had recalled the law of Moses which set, every 50th year, to give liberty to slaves, and to void the debts. With other churches, and numerous NGO’s, the Church has sought to make all aware that humanly and morally speaking it is unacceptable that, because of the debt, in many countries, children die and whole populations cannot have access to health care and education.
1 - The Debt: A child’s Perspective
Let’s take just one instance, and this not the worst: “Every child born in Peru owes US $1,200 to pay off the foreign debt – every child, even though they didn’t borrow that money. How would you like it if someone told you that, when you were a kid?” asks Jovana Cruz Condor, 16.
Despite her youth, Cruz is more than aware of the mistakes made both by past governments of Peru, which she says did not properly invest the money lent to them, and by international lending organizations, which she accuses of setting unfair interest rates. Cruz says the country’s economic crisis has driven families like hers into deeper poverty. Unable to find formal employment, her father sells goods on the street, but does not earn enough to provide for the family’s basic needs. Cruz, who is still in high school – and this alone gives her a great advantage over most of her country’s children – helps out by working part-time, buying bread wholesale and selling it to small stores.
Unfortunately, Cruz is not alone. An estimated 2 million Peruvian children are engaged in poorly paid, often dangerous or exploitive labor to help supplement their families’ income. As “informal workers” she and her father do not pay income tax, but Cruz says the debt still directly affects through the 18% general sales tax on all goods and services.
“I tell other kids, each time you buy even one candy, you’re paying part of that debt.”
For more than three years, the Movement of Working Children and Youth ahs been teaching its young members about the debt’s effect on poverty and children.
Using the slogan “Life before debt,” Peru’s Jubilee movement, backed by the Catholic Church, non-governmental organizations and other popular movements, staged a massive public education during 1999 to collect signatures on a petition calling for reduction or forgiveness of the country’s $ 30 billion debt. But Peru was not alone in this campaign: about 17 million people from more than 170 countries signed similar petitions to be presented to the G-7 leaders of the world’s richest nations. For the last three years, the Catholic Church, on its part, has focused on raising awareness about the effects of the external debt through the media, seminars and events featuring soccer teams and folklore music groups. The Movement of Working Children and Youth ahs created a “brotherhood of children from North to South” whose goal is not just fraternal Through letter-exchanges, visits and international child and youth conferences, the young people discuss issues related to the foreign debt and children’s rights, so they can lobby at home and abroad for social justice.
Cruz draws motivation from feeling part of a global movement. “The debt is not just in Peru, but in other countries too, where children are dying from hunger. That’s why we are fighting in this campaign, not just for our country, because there are countries much poorer than Peru. We are fighting for all child workers, everywhere.”
2 – “We have the means…”
“The debt – asserts Peruvian Fr. Gregorio Iriarte – isn’t paid by the government. It’s paid by people through the progressive weakening of social services, such as health, roads, potable water in rural communities, and especially education; the tragic truth being that ignorance costs more than education! Al these things have been used for debt service which in Peru alone has absorbed between 30 and 40 percent of the national revenue.
That’s the argument the Pope uses: those who did not contract the debt, or benefit from the loan, are paying the debt. This is being repeated many, many times all over the ‘heavily indebted poor countries,’ where the debt contributes to devastating economic crises and the resultant human suffering.”
“In Africa, 21 millions of children have died because of hunger and sickness. The money that could have saved them had to pay for the external debt their government contracted and, in many instances, misused and abused.
Every year in Ethiopia, 100 thousand children die of easily curable disease, but the money is used to pay for the debt.
The average African household consumes 20% less than it did 25 years ago. In all of Africa, only one in two children go to school while governments spend four times more to pay for the debts they owe than for education and health. It is absurd to suggest that a country can devote 30-40 percent of its national product to debt payments. Nobody should pretend of a people deprivations which would the dignity of the person.”
According to the Director General of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “we have the means to eradicate hunger from the face of the earth if we are willing to make the enormous efforts it requires. The world food production is today more than sufficient to adequately feed its present six billion human beings… If we cannot uproot hunger, the only excuse which we’ll be able to give to future generations is that of ignorance, egoism, and lack of vision.”
3 – “Do we have the will?”
As
the Holy Year neared its end, Pope John Paul II vowed continuing efforts to
bring the lending countries and institutions to reduce, or even altogether
forgive the foreign debts of poor countries – one of his Jubilee priorities
– as a crucial step in fighting global poverty.
“We cannot permit fatigue or inertia to weaken our commitment when
the lives of the poorest in our world are at stake,” on Dec. 4 he told
participants in a Vatican seminar on debt relief.
He also said debt relief must be carried out in a way which makes the
poor themselves the protagonists of their own development.
“New approaches are now needed and they should be designed with the
help of the people who are in need… The
poorest countries must become themselves the driving force of efforts to fight
poverty and bring the benefits of economic progress to their people.”
More still, every society needs to “enable each person to be an active
subject by placing their God-given talents at the service of the wider
community.”
Life must be protected by changing the world that threatens it.
The Catholic Church, which has organized grass-roots structures unique in
poor countries, particularly by the work of the thousands of missionaries
present there, can have an important role not only in speaking for the poor and
the local communities, but also by creating solidarity and by contributing to
foster civil participation called for in these debt relief projects.
Only when citizens are truly involved will the nation have a real
commitment to the process of ridding itself of the debt burden.
Now that the Jubilee Year has come to an end, do the efforts toward eradicating poverty from among God’s people the world over leave us satisfied?
Nobody can be satisfied with saying that what’s happened just in the year 2000 is enough. The Jubilee Year was not meant to be an event which began and ended in 2000, but an event in which we have begun again to go forward into a hope-filled future. Thus the initiatives taken so far are concrete steps, but also symbolic gestures for a believable program of doing things in a way more just and more transparent toward a long-term solution.
As missionaries, we must maintain our commitments to use the networks that we have, to deepen our understanding of the experience of the poor, to see the world as much as possible through their eyes, and to align ourselves with them as we work for a world of justice, peace, and equity, in keen awareness that, as the world hopes toward a more dignified human life for all, “we must never forget that love is truly the only thing that matters.”
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)