Latin America comes together in call for debt cancellation

As Brazil's embattled government struggles to pay its foreign debts, representatives from seventeen Latin American countries gathering in Honduras from 25^th – 27^th January, will call for creditors to put an end to their reckless lending to Latin America, and cancel the unpayable debts of the poorest countries by the year 2000.

The Jubilee 2000 Latin America campaign will be launched by Mr. Carlo Flores, President of Honduras, who is calling for urgent solutions to be found to the debt crisis in his country after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch. Along with Nicaragua, the country has been granted a freeze on payments for just over 2 years during which interest will be added. The radical mood of delegates particularly from Mexico and Brazil, may bring calls opposing debt repayment throughout the continent.

Director of Jubilee 2000 Coalition, Ann Pettifor, who is addressing the conference, said:

“Countries across Latin America are facing effective insolvency as currencies fall, interest rates stay high and debts soar. The Jubilee 2000 call for cancellation of unpayable debt will discipline both reckless lenders and careless borrowers. The people of Latin America need a fresh start after years of failed austerity programmes, rising indebtedness and spiralling poverty. The IMF is now holed up in the last-chance saloon, and this historic meeting in Honduras comes at High Noon; it will launch a period of rising resistance to the amoral economics of the G8 and the international financial institutions.”

The movement has been boosted with the announcement on Monday (18^th January) that 54 members of the US Congress have written to President Clinton calling on him to cancel debts owed by Central American countries most affected by Hurricane Mitch.

Countries attending the conference: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

The launch of the Jubilee 2000 Latin America movement sets off the Global Chain Reaction - a series of actions calling for debt cancellation for the poorest countries around the world. The culmination will be a massive human chain around the G8 Summit in Cologne in June.

• For background on debt crisis in Nicaragua and Honduras
• For a country profile of Bolivia