wfn.org | Episcopalians discuss 'fresh start' for Africa

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-093

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Debt conference calls for 'fresh start' for Africa

by James Solheim

(ENS) The voices were urgent--and angry, calling for the 
forgiveness of international debts owed by African nations to 
give them a "fresh start," and also for a new economic order 
based on mutuality rather than exploitation.

An intense three-day consultation dealing with trade, aid, 
and debt drew a wide variety of people committed to economic 
justice for Africa, limited not just to experts but including 
students, former missionaries, government officials and church 
leaders.

Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane gave 
the keynote address for the June 4-6 consultation in a suburb of 
Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Washington Office on Africa 
and the Stony Point Conference Center. Increasingly recognized as 
a leading spokesman for economic justice for his continent, the 
archbishop was blunt in calling for the "cancellation of 
unpayable debts as a first significant step towards a new 
economic beginning for the developing world, in particular 
Africa," providing "a springboard to new hope, to a new 
dispensation of economic justice."

A net of debt

Speaking to a crowd at the Cannon House Office Building, 
Ndungane traced the debt crisis, beginning with the liberation 
movements of the 1960s when leaders "grasped at economic 
lifelines thrown out by developed countries," not aware that 
"they were being caught up in the net of foreign debt that would 
drag them further into a sea of poverty."

As a result, he said, "millions of people in developing 
countries now live in abject poverty while a massive transfer of 
wealth takes place, from the people of the south to the 
industrialized nations of the north." It is now estimated that 
Africa owes over $227 billion to creditors, about $400 for every 
man, woman and child on the continent, by some estimates.

In many instances, he noted, the debt was incurred by 
oppressive governments. In South Africa, for example, the 
apartheid regime racked up a debt of about $62 billion, debts 
which "should be declared odious and written off."

"Poor countries are obliged by the International Monetary 
Fund and other representatives of rich creditor nations to 
prioritize debt payments and to do this by diverting funds from 
health, clean water, sanitation and human development," Ndungane 
said. His call for a Mediation Council that would "establish 
legal principles and standards to govern international lending 
and borrowing," was endorsed by last summer's Lambeth Conference 
of the world's Anglican and Episcopal bishops meeting in 
Canterbury, England.

The scandal of our age

While the gap widens between the rich and the poor nations, 
"Planet Earth rent asunder by such division and injustice is 
heading for shipwreck." He added that "the single greatest 
scandal of our age" is the "massive transfer of resources from 
poorer countries to the wealthy, whether through debt repayments 
or the inequalities of global trade."

Standing on the threshold of a new millennium, Africans must 
pledge themselves to work for cancellation of unpayable debts, 
especially those stemming from militarist regimes, which "would 
give Africa an opportunity for a fresh start," he said. And then 
Africa must move to "ensure that funds released from debt are 
channeled towards economic projects" and develop strategies for 
sustainable development.

Ndungane repeated his urgent call for creation of an 
Economic Union of African States to coordinate economic 
development and assure that Africa would never again be 
marginalized or exploited. "It is time to move forward and to 
share the healthy, invigorating air of Africa with a world that 
has grown fatigued with old values," he concluded. "Africa stands 
at a time where it can and must play a pivotal role in 
influencing the next millennium. And for that it must be freed 
from the last shackles of oppression that are holding it back--
the yoke of international debt."

Breaking bonds of debt

A second voice from Africa, a theologian and economist from 
Tanzania, was just as blunt. The Rev. Fidon Mwombeki denounced 
the World Bank and IMF as "unfriendly agents of imperialism which 
were neither created nor work for us" While admitting that it was 
"unprecedented" for the World Bank and IMF to even consider debt 
cancellation, he said,   "We want to repudiate them, to say 
enough is enough. We are pushing our governments to disengage 
themselves from these tyrants. Our people have suffered for too 
long under their domination. Their prescriptions for economic 
reform," he said, "are grossly preposterous and grotesque." 

Calling most of the debts "illegitimate," he said, "We can 
no longer snatch food from the mouths of children to pay the 
debt."

Mwombeki described how difficult it was to return home to 
Tanzania after five years of study in the United States and "see 
columns of young boys and girls walking five miles to school 
early in the morning... to see endless funerals in villages where 
children die of malnutrition and malaria because they cannot 
afford medical user fees imposed by the IMF and World Bank... to 
see roads dilapidated, telephones which do not work, underweight 
pregnant mothers giving birth to underweight children without 
access to medical care."

He concluded, "After years of being their humiliated good 
boys, our economies are poorer, our people more illiterate, our 
savings lower, our children without hope, our industries closed, 
our good institutions sold to foreigners at give-away prices, our 
governments more indebted and unable to control even dangerous 
products banned elsewhere." He added, "We want our money back--
and you know where it is."

Later during a question-and-answer period, he said, "It is 
humiliating to beg. Nobody wants to be dependent. But there is no 
chance for freedom unless the chains of debt bondage are broken."

Both Mwombeki and Ndungane endorsed Jubilee 2000, an 
international campaign calling for cancellation of the burden of 
debt in the developing world and a new, more cooperative, 
economic order, based on the biblical vision from Leviticus 25.

Taking action

After working in small groups, participants met in a plenary 
to hammer out elements of a strategy to address issues of trade, 
aid and debt. A final statement, "Toward economic justice in 
Africa: A kairos moment for American policy," argued that 
economic systems have favored the few "to the destruction of many 
others. Greed seems to be at the basis of this oppressive system, 
producing massive poverty clearly recognizable in the problems of 
disease, hunger, illiteracy, violence, death, crime and 
immorality."

The statement urged a broadened definition of "neighbor to 
that of a universal neighbor, beyond our immediate kin, local 
community, ethnic group and nationality" as a way to affirm 
interdependence as a vision of community. "If we are all created 
in God's image, then the denial of dignity to any undermines the 
vision of true community," it said.

At the heart of the debt issue, it said, is "imbalance of 
power" and it is crucial to create mechanisms to prevent similar 
patterns in the future. "Countries have repaid the equivalent 
value of the original loans, including the principal and 
interest, many times over. Creditors must recognize that much of 
the remaining debt is morally odious." It further endorsed 
Ndungane's idea of a mediation council as a mechanism to build a 
different economic order.

The real issue for the church at this point is "how to be a 
prophetic voice in dealing with economic justice for Africa," 
said the Rev. Leon Spencer, an Episcopalian who is director of 
the Washington Office on Africa. He said that the stories shared 
in the small groups revealed the "human realities" of the 
difficult issues. While it is important to deal with specific 
legislation before Congress, "We are not here to take a stand" 
but to work towards a plan of action that expresses the church's 
prophetic role.

--James Solheim is director of the Office of News and Information 
for the Episcopal Church.