[3-9-01]

Following up on the successes achieved toward debt cancellation, a coalition of faith-based and activist organizations launched the Jubilee/USA Network at a three day meeting in Denver, Colorado February 16-18, 2001.  We now have a more complete report of decisions and plans shaped at that meeting.  The newly formed Jubilee USA Network will continue urging full cancellation of debts owed by developing nations to the IMF and the World Bank, will work for making more treatment for AIDS available to developing nations, and will urge the completion of legislative action needed this year to get full Congressional appropriations for existing debt relief programs.

Barbara Battin gives a participant's report: 
"Not Your Usual Trip to the Mall"

Presbyterian News Service has published a lengthy analysis of the significant roles played by Presbyterians -- as a church and as individuals -- in working for passage of the Jubilee debt relief measure. [1-15-01]

"THE YEAR OF THE LORD"

by Jane Hanna

The Jubilee 2000 Campaign, advocating debt relief for the poorest nations by the year 2000, is a world-wide effort supported by faith communities and humanitarian organizations, to challenge and change some of the rules by which the global economy is managed.

Thousands of North Americans have joined Jubilee 2000/USA, motivated by recognition of that we are major power brokers in the world economy. Many have been drawn to the movement because it found its inspiration in the Book of Leviticus calling for a Year of Jubilee. God's instructions to the Hebrew people include the requirement that every fifty years debts were to be canceled, family land returned, and the oppressed set free. No economic system was to keep people permanently impoverished.

Thousands of names on petitions have been gathered and sent to leaders of the richest countries. Human chains have formed around the US Treasury as a symbol of the need for the US government to give meaningful debt relief for impoverished countries. Dozens of groups across the US have been delivering paper chains and letters to their members of congress asking them to take action on HR 1095, bipartisan legislation to cancel the bilateral debts the poorest countries owe the US. The Presbyterian Washington Office was a participant in developing HR 1095, the focus of this year's Bread for the World Offering of Letters campaign "Proclaim Jubilee, Break the Chains of Debt"

It is heartening to note that as the Jubilee 2000/USA campaign has built momentum, adding our nation's influence and strength to the movement, there have been a series of new proposals to address the debt crisis. Beginning last June when the governments of the G7 nations met in Cologne, Germany, international debt began to receive the attention of the world's most powerful leaders. Since then, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have responded to mounting pressure, developing new debt-relief initiatives and internal reforms. IMF and World Bank officials, at a first-ever joint meeting of the two giant lending agencies' policy-setting committees, recently pledged to support deeper, broader and faster debt relief for the world's poorest countries.

President Clinton offered on September 29 to forgive all the official debts to the US of as many as 36 of the world's poorest nations, provided they use the canceled debt to finance "basic human needs." In calling debt relief "a gift to the new millennium" and including provisions advocated by the Jubilee 2000 campaign, it becomes evident that the pressure from Jubilee supporters is having an impact. That same day there were hearings before the Senate Finance Committee about the upcoming World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. It was encouraging to hear Office of US Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky state that the need for labor, environmental, and human welfare considerations would be on the negotiating table.

While these optimistic proposals from government and financial leaders are in the right direction and go beyond previous offers, they fall short of all the requirements of the Jubilee 2000 campaign. It is the Structural Adjustment Programs, imposed and required by the IMF for debt interest repayment, that have burdened the poor the most. These have not been mentioned as a significant source of the problem and without major redirection of the resources of poor countries, little will change for the most impoverished. The support of people of faith and conscience must continue efforts to influence policy-makers for meaningful debt relief to become a reality.