INTERNATIONAL debt campaigners on Monday
urged G8 leaders to admit responsibility for the food and
climate crises and the continuing debt problem of developing
countries.
In a statement, more than 100 international,
regional, national, and local organizations and individuals,
also asked people's organizations and movements and concerned
citizens to join the move to challenge the G8 countries to act
on their seven-point demand.
The demands are: cancel all illegitimate
debt; stop financing projects and policies that contribute to
climate change; respect efforts of South countries to reverse
the harmful policies that have led to the food crisis; ban
speculation on food prices; end the use of loans and debt
cancellation to impose conditions; pay restitution and
reparations for the huge ecological debts owed to the South; and
facilitate the return of stolen assets kept in the banks in the
G8 countries.
The statement was initiated by the Jubilee
South - Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS-APMDD).
The signatories from the Philippines include the Freedom from
Debt Coalition (FDC), Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement,
Movement for People's Freedom, Bukluran ng Manggagawang
Pilipino, Center for Migrant Advocacy, and Task Force Food
Sovereignty (TFFS).
The signatories said high oil prices,
worsening climate conditions, and price manipulation by trading
cartels and speculators contributed to soaring food prices but
the use of debt, access to credit, and debt relief on countries
in the South also resulted in the drop of agricultural
production and less sustainable agricultural practices.
They said other policies that resulted in
higher food prices include the removal of state subsidies for
basic food crops, reduction in spending for irrigation systems,
prescriptions for export-oriented high growth economic
strategies, trade liberalization, expansion of land use
conversion from production of food to private housing estates,
golf courses and resorts.
They said G8 governments, the biggest
bilateral lenders and the most influential members of
international financial institutions, should cancel all
illegitimate debts and respect the action of Southern countries
to reverse the policies that have led to the food crisis.
The "illegitimate debts" that FDC referred to
included the Bohol irrigation project and the San Roque
Multi-purpose Irrigation project.
The signatories said the G8 governments bear
primary responsibility for the climate crisis because half of
the world's green house gas (GHG) emissions come from their
countries and that most of them are lagging behind the reduction
targets of GHG emissions. "Even the European Union, with its
bold plan of being the first de-carbonized economy in the world,
has undermined its own claims by planning to build 40 major new
coal power plants in the next five years," they said.
They also said lenders like the World Bank
and the regional development banks are major sources of funds
for projects involving fossil fuel industries, paid for by
peoples of the South. Since the signing of the Climate
Convention in 1992, the World Bank approved more than 133
financial packages to oil, coal and gas extraction projects,
comprising of loans, equity investments, guarantees, and grants
that amount to more than $28 billion.
The Asian Development Bank, to which Japan
and the United States are the biggest shareholders, is a major
lender to coal, oil and gas projects in Asia, approving close to
$2 billion worth of loan packages since the year 2000.
The signatories lamented that the debt service payments
hampers the ability of countries and peoples of the South to
deal with the food and climate crises. - Regina Bengco
