Latin America campaign says cap debt service at 3% of budget

No country should pay more than 3% of its government budget on debt service, the Jubilee 2000 Latin American campaign demanded at its launch in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 25-27 January. The level of 3% was highlighted because that is the level the international community agreed for Peru in 1946.

“External debt has been and is unpayable, illegitimate and immoral. It is impossible to pay. Mathematically there is no formula to do so,” the participants said in their “Tegucigalpa Declaration”.

The debt “is illegitimate because it originated in large measure from decisions made by dictatorial governments, not elected by the people, and governments that were formally democratic but corrupt. The major part of it was not used to benefit the people who today are forced to pay,” the Declaration continues.

Finally, the Declaration appealed for support from Jubilee 2000 groups in the north, and called on them to never make any proposal which involves a specific value for debt reduction less than that which the Latin Americans were demanding. This was an obliquely reference to proposed United States bill, circulated at the meeting, which called for debt service of not more than 10% of the government budget compared to the 3% demanded in the Declaration.

The meeting also approved an Action Plan which calls for:

• a Latin American campaign around the slogan “Yes to Life, No to Debt”,
• a technical seminar in Peru 25-27 May,
• activites on 13 and 19 June linked to the Cologne G7 meeting, and
• promotion of 12 October as the Latin American Day of Protest of the Excluded and 19 June as the World Day Against Debt.

Jubilee 2000 campaigners came to Tegucigalpa from 16 countries with Jubilee 2000 campaigns: Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Cuba, Honduras, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica and Panama

Kofi Klu, Archbishop Ndungane of South Africa, and Bishop Mandlate of Mozambqiue represented the African campaign. Juergen Kaiser represented the German campaign; Bishop Baycroft and Kathy Price came from the Canadian Jubilee 2000; and Marie Dennis from the US campaign.

Archbishop Rodriguez of Honduras opened the conference by noting that debt sat like a tombstone on the lives of millions of Latin Americans. A message from Nobel Prize Winner Adolfo Esquivel declared the debt "a massive and systematic violation of human rights". He went on to say that "the foreign debt is the determinant factor in the disorder of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is a murderous project that has been imposed on us."

The President of the Honduran Bank reminded the conference of the devastation that Hurricane Mitch caused for his country, and said “this launch of Jubilee 2000 today renews our hope, our faith”.

The leading Honduran composer, Guillermo Anderson, then performed the song “Deuda” which he had written specially for the launch.

Campaigners from throughout Latin America told of their own experiences. Manuel Barreno of Ecuador told how he and a group of students visited a nearby forest and cut down one of the tallest trees to make a giant cross. This was carried by thousands of people to the Ecuadorian Parliament, and to the US embassy, to protest at Ecuador's debt.

• Declaraçio de Tegucigalpa
  Plataforma Latinoamericana e Caribenha Jubileu 2000 (Portuguese)
• Declaración de Tegucigalpa
  Plataforma Latinoamericana y Caribeña Jubileo 2000 (Espanol)
• Plan de Acción (Espanol)
• Tegucigalpa Declaration
  Latin American and Caribbean Platform, Jubilee 2000 (English)
• Action Plan (English)
• Director Ann Pettifor tells how Angela joined the Global Chain Reaction
• Nobel Prize Winner says debt is a massive human rights violation
• Africa campaign co-ordinator speech to Latin America Conference