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 Despite the head of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) comments last week that he wished to see the cancellation of all Haiti's debts, including its new $102 million loan to the country, no official move towards transforming the loan into a grant has been made. The devastated country now owes the IMF over $250 million, a burden that campaigners are denouncing as scandalous.
Civil society group PAPDA, the Haitian Advocacy Platform for Development, released a statement saying: "The debts imposed by the IFIs and the major world powers have contributed to destroying our country. It's the equivalent of an earthquake which has lasted from late in 1983 when we signed the first standby agreement with the IMF. These loans have caused earthquakes, aftershocks and tremors which have undermined our institutions and our capacity to respond to a crisis of this magnitude." A briefing paper from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated: "We call on the IMF to immediately and unconditionally cancel all of Haiti's debt, including its new loan, and for rich countries to make large grant aid available to Haiti as restitution for centuries of damage inflicted on that country." At a meeting of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of the EU last week, Spain made a proposal to distribute surplus European agricultural commodities to the earthquake victims. Meanwhile, Venezuela, one of Haiti's biggest creditors, announced that it would cancel all Haiti's debts. Sources: |
