The Dakar Declaration for the Total and Unconditional Cancellation of African and Third World Debt
We, participants at the
Dakar 2000 meeting for the Cancellation of Third World Debt, representing
African people‚s civil societies, supported by civil societies from
Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America, from the analysis
of the debt issue, of structural adjustment plans (SAPs) and development
realize that:
- Third World debt to the North is at once fraudulent, odious,
illegal, immoral, illegitimate, obscene and genocidal
- Countries of the North owe Third World countries, particularly
Africa, a manifold debt: blood debt with slavery; economic debt
with colonization, and the looting of human and mineral resources
and unequal exchange; ecological debt with the destruction and
the looting of its natural resources; social debt (unemployment;
mass poverty) and cultural debt (debasing of African civilizations
to justify colonization)
- The debt structure and its computation are beyond the debtors‚
control. In effect, since 1988, the increase in the sub-Saharan
African debt is due for 65% to arrears on amortization and capitalized
interests. This shows that the debt burden has become more and
more unbearable for the populations
- Debt and structural adjustment plans (SAPs) constitute the
principal causes for the degradation of health, education, nutrition,
food security, the environment and sociocultural values of the
African and Third World populations
- Debt and SAPs are the cause for the aggravation of unemployment,
the destruction of families leading to the rise of delinquency
and prostitution, the worsening of women‚s socio-economic conditions
and daily life, the ecological degradation of the continent
and wars with their cohorts of refugees and displaced persons
- The fall in the incomes and purchasing power of African workers
and producers has necessarily negative repercussions on economic
growth in Northern countries, and therefore on the rise in unemployment
and exclusion
- To the brain drain, one can add the emigration of Third World
vital forces to the North, with all their mafia-like consequences:
generating, laundering and circulating dirty money, illegal
drug, human organ trafficking, prostitution, weakening of innovative
and entrepreneurial capacities
- Debt and SAPs weaken Third World countries by exposing them
to unequal trade and to the ravages of deregulated financial
markets. The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the trade agreements
imposed by the United States and the European union aim to further
weaken Third World countries
- The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the governments of G7 countries refuse to cancel the debt because
the latter is a mechanism allowing them to impose policies consistent
with their interests and their control over the Third World
- Debt is a neo-liberal mechanism aimed at promoting the interests
of transnational corporations, and for this reason, there is
collusion between the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization
- Africa is not immune to economic disorders provoked by international
financial speculations
- Our struggle is similar
to those of Seattle, Washington, Prague and Nice
Therefore, conscious of
the necessity of a solidarity among progressive social forces from
the Third World and the North: NGOs, Labor Unions, Peasant Organizations,
Women‚s and Youth Organizations, Religious Organizations, Cultural
Workers and Actors, Communications Professionals, we participants
at Dakar 2000:
- Declare that the right to development and the eradication
of poverty is people‚s fundamental right.
- Condemn the constitution
and accumulation of Third World debt, by Northern countries,
with the complicity of the former‚s rulers
- And
Demand:
from
Northern creditors (financial institutions and states):
-
The unconditional and immediate cancellation of Third World
debt in its totality
-
The end to the economic and financial exploitation of Africa
and the Third World by the abolition of the Bretton Woods institutions
which, contrary to their mission, have only succeeded in spreading
poverty and increasing inequalities
-
The restitution of the amounts that have been unduly received
-
The compensation of the African and Third World people for
the human, moral, physical, material and environmental losses
they suffered due the debt burden, SAPs and the spoliation of
their wealth
-
The democratization of the functioning of the WTO
-
The institution of a tax on capital movements to help citizens
(Tobin tax)
from
African and Third World Countries‚ Heads of State:
-
The outright repudiation of debt without warning and delay
-
The establishment of a Repudiation Front to resist and fight
back the pressures and sanctions which could result from this
policy
-
The rejection of SAPs
-
The restoration in their place of genuine, equitable and sustainable
development policies respectful of human rights, workers‚ rights,
and based on popular participation. This means promoting the
Lagos Plan, the African Alternative Framework to SAPs, the Abuja
Treaty, the Arusha Charter as alternatives to SAPs
-
To behave as genuine defenders of their people‚s interests
and care about the future of current and next generations, particularly
of women and children
-
To establish a sincere dialogue with their civil societies
-
To put an end to pseudo -ethnic and -civil wars and conflicts
maintained with the debt at the expense of social spending and
productive investments
-
To promote the mobilization of endogenous financial resources
through internal savings to finance development before resorting
to external „aid‰
-
To display a greater cohesion in the negotiations with international
financial institutions, regional organizations (for instance,
the European Union) and the WTO.
from
Third World Social Forces:
-
To resist the pressures and hardship imposed on them by transnational
corporations, in collusion with the IMF, the World Bank and
the WTO
-
To fight back the pressures and be in the forefront of the
offensive for social struggles from which will emerge alternative
strategies
-
To impose on their governments the implementation of concrete
and workable solutions to the debt problem and to the negative
impact of SAPs
-
To impose their participation in the formulation, implementation
and evaluation of alternative policies and programs to SAPs
-
To demand from their governments the institution of social
dialogue and the right to control as a governance method
-
To set up independent national commissions on ill-acquired
wealth and create a synergy among them
-
To organize into national, Pan-African and international coalitions
with the people of the Third World and progressive forces from
the North
-
To build an African People‚s Consensus to face up to debt,
to trade and financial policies that constitute the neo-liberal
framework imposed by the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and the
G7 countries
-
To build that Consensus from the bottom up, based on the concerns
of the people
-
To educate the people on the causes of their poverty and support
popular resistance movements
-
To support the establishment of popular resistance movements
within an endogenous development framework, suited for our countries,
for our continent
-
To organize them into a powerful regional network to strengthen
the African People‚s Consensus
-
To coordinate these activities at the continental level to
ensure a stronger coherence
-
To coordinate the progress of the African People‚s Consensus
with the struggle of worldwide progressive forces
from
African intellectuals, researchers and academics:
-
To further commit themselves to the search for alternative
solutions based on our socio-cultural values of solidarity and
from our own resources
-
To make their works more visible and accessible to social actors
-
The African experts who worked for international institutions
should make their experience and relationships available to
the African civil society in order to strengthen its capacity
-
To formulate and compel our States to implement our own paradigm
based on people‚s interests and positive African values
from
African labor unions:
To unite into a continental and international coalition with workers
from Asia, Latin America and Northern countries for the total and
unconditional cancellation of African and Third World debt
from
women‚s organizations, African youth, artists and sportspeople:
To organize into national and Pan-African coalitions and join the
other actors for the success of the struggles, the search for, and
the implementation of, alternatives to SAPs and to the Washington
Consensus
from
NGOs supporting development:
-
To contribute to the economic literacy of grassroots communities
and promote the conception and dissemination of appropriate
pedagogic tools
-
To contribute to education for justice and to education for
development according to the recommendations of the Dakar conference
on education for all
request
from Northern countries‚ progressive forces:
-
To step up the pressure on international financial institutions
and their States
-
To intensify in their countries the campaigns for a popular
movement in favor of the abolition of the IMF, the World Bank
and the WTO and the end to their interference in the internal
affairs of Africa, Asia and Latin America
-
To strengthen their solidarity with the progressive forces
and the people of Africa and the Third World.
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