A response to Jubilee+'s special correnspondent in Accra.

I congratulate our correspondent in Accra on his/her concise and common sense approach.

Of course Ghana is to pursue the HIPC line, as would any other right mined govt/person faced with the same plight. They must do what they can to address their people's problems. In so doing it is true that they will be selling their resources and sovereignty at hugely undervalued rates. If they get to sell them at all given the IMF/World Bank turnaround!

However the bottom line in this entire debate is the health & wellbeing of the most wretched people on Earth. Let us be reminded that debt reduction/abolition is the key to providing the desperately uderpriviliged with the basic human rights of clean water & health care. And that if these basic living standards were met (standards that are demanded by law for the protection of domestic animals in the developed world) then these peoples would be then fit to address their economic woes.

Play the game for the sake of those that will die if you don't, not for those that will suffer an economic inconvenience and don't be affraid to cheat once those that are most vulnerable have been protected. Genocide is not to be tolerated as acure for economic mismanagement, especially when the mismanagement was perpetrated, in no small part, by the lenders.

Lastly, to engage in economic rhetoric with those that formulated it in order hide the fact that all is down to fear and greed is foolhardy. It only serves to to distract one from the real issues at hand. The simple truth is that all HIPC debt could be dropped without it causing a ripple in global markets if only they had the will

Regards

Peter Minards

Australia