It’s time to act
Anne Lanyon
Anne Lanyon tells us what happens when debt is illegitimate and accumulating.
MY eyes were opened to the structural injustice that underpinned poverty when I saw the human face of poverty in Southern Africa and Bangladesh.
Then I became involved in the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign in 1999 when I started working with the Columban Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice. When Fr Brian Gore came to the Centre in 2000, I learnt from him about the dire effects on the people of the Philippines of the national debt incurred in the time of the Marcos dictatorship.
For example, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, a pet project of Marcos, was built near an earthquake fault line and close to an active volcano. Considered the country’s biggest white elephant, it never produced the electricity for which it was financed. It was finally paid off in 2007 after 32 years of drain and strain on the public purse. The cost to the Filipino taxpayer was AUD$497million at today’s exchange rate on a debt of AUD$1.145billion.
The term used by those campaigning for justice around the debt issue is illegitimate debt, or debt “claimed by lenders, wealthy institutions and countries, which only financed flawed and anti-people development projects and programmes, or which were contracted by illegitimate regimes to further their rule.”
The Philippines is one country where people suffer because of illegitimate debt. The Debt Appropriations Act ensures that every minute, AUD$28,524 is paid out to service the debt before public money is used for health, education and basic services. The total national debt is 81.9% of the Gross Domestic Product, much of it incurred through failed projects financed by wealthy financial institutions. Such projects have not benefitted the people, yet debt repayments amount to AUD$1,200 for every single Filipino person.
Fr Gore said that the rich world is not really interested in changing the unjust system because the financiers live off the backs of the poor through the debt repayments. Right now, the rising price of rice in the Philippines is leading to massive queues for cheaper government supplies. It’s the poor who bear the burden! An economic system that props up illegitimate and growing debt is unjust and should be changed.
Ten years ago 70,000 people formed a human chain to protest against debt at the G8 summit in Birmingham. The Jubilee Debt Campaign has achieved small successes since 2000 and is now a strong global movement for economic justice. The responsibility for the debt crisis has been borne by the borrowing countries for too long.
The focus of the global campaign is now on highlighting not only the illegitimate debts, but the illegitimate system that enables them to occur. In the Philippines, a coalition including church people has formed to do an audit of public debt and investigate illegitimate debt cases. In Australia, Jubilee Australia is undertaking a public audit of Australia’s lending and financing of overseas projects.
One of the goals of the Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice as an active member of Jubilee Australia is to urge local churches in Australia to be more involved in the debt issue. We believe that the Church in our time must challenge the scandal of structural poverty. We believe that responding to such challenges is basic to what the Gospel demands of Christians and that this is central to our missionary work.
We urge your church or group to become a Jubilee Congregation. It’s appropriate that in celebrating the relational God: Father, Son and Spirit, we respond to the God of love by showing our love and concern for those enchained by illegitimate and accumulating debt.
For more information contact Jubilee Australia on (02) 8259 0826 or see www.jubileeaustralia.org
People can sign up to become Jubilee Congregations. Debt prayer bookmarks are available from the Columban Centre for Peace, Ecology and Justice by calling (02) 9352 8021 or at pej.cmi@columban.org.au
