Brazil puts debt in the dock

A tribunal to judge and denounce foreign debt and to identify who is responsible will take place in Rio de Janeiro on April 26-28 -- the same week as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington also look at the debt issue.

Judges will include Dr Luiz Vicente Cernichiaro, Minister of the Supreme Court, federal judge Dra Salete Maccalos, and other prominent lawyers. The jury will be composed of prominent Brazilian figures, including Cardinal D. Paulo Evaristo Arns, pop star Mano Brown, and representatives of the unemployed, landless, retired, and trade union movements.

Tribunal da Divida Externa (In Portuguese)

The tribunal is organised by the Brazilian Jubilee 2000 and is backed by a wide range of organisations, including the Landless People's Movement, trade unions, social movements, cooperative movements, and religious groups.

Brazil's debt has grown from $ 3 billion in 1964 to $72 billion in 1980 to $115 bn in 1989 to $212 bn now. In the past ten years, Brazil has paid $216 in debt service, yet the debt has nearly doubled. Brazil's government now pays more servicing the foreign debt than it spends on health.

The organisers of the tribunal put the blame for the debt in two places. First, the military dictatorship of the 60s and 70s wasted money building huge projects as if they were Egyptian pharaohs. Second, in recent years money has been borrowed abroad that does not even leave pyramids behind, but instead finances imports of cars, consumer electronics and even food by the better off -- which has increased the debt while destroying local industry and throwing people out of work.

"The government forgets it has another debt, also huge: the social debt to its people to pay for housing, educating, land, health, democracy, etc. There are more than 10 million unemployed in Brazil; 5 million families are landless. The creditors of the foreign debt are a handful of bankers and speculators; the creditors of the social debt are 90% of all Brazilians," the tribunal declares in its public invitation.

• For more information on the Tribunal