A CAMPAIGN has been launched by the Cape Town based Alternative Information and development Centre (AIDC) for the abolition of the foreign debt built up by the Apartheid regime.
Although this campaign is specifically aimed at the legacy of apartheid it has far broader political ramifications as nearly all the so-called developing countries are crippled by these debts. The approach being adopted here may give a new boost to existing campaigns against debt and help stimulate new ones.
Post apartheid South Africa has inherited a foreign debt of $18.7 billion. The interest payable on this vast sum - between $1.5 billion and $2.6 billion annually - could be put. to much better use funding the housing, jobs health and social services that South Africa so badly neces.
It is estimated that $18.7 billion (90 million rand) could go a long way to acalevine * 300,000 new homes (R/Obn)
* Water and sanitation for 21 million people (R36-56bn over 5 years)
*Électrification of 2.5 million homes (RI | bn over 5 years)
* |060 new health clinics (RI.2 bn)
* The upgrading of 50,000 classrooms by the year 2000 and the provision of textbooks to schools (R15-17 bn)
* Employment of all those unemployed (R82.8 bn per anum)
In their brochure Challenging Apartheid's foreign debt AIDC stresses that they have both morality and international law on their all those who saw a passage across side in waging this battle. They base much of their argumentation on the Doctrine of Odious Debt, a doctrine of jurisprudence the United States government and the US Chief Justice helped to develop:
"The US government, in the aftermath of the American-Spanish War of 100 years ago, used the doctrine to repudiate Cuba's debt to Spain, arguing that the debt was "odious" and unenforceable since it had been incurred without the consent of the Cuban people and by means of force of arms". Al the end of 1990, s7"" of South Africa's outstanding debt was owed to banks of five countries ...
This judgement was further reinforced in 1923 when the Royal Bank of Canada sought to recover debt from the recently established democratic government of Costa Rica.
"In the Costa Rica judgement the debt was illegitimate. The new government argued that the debt has been incurred by a dictator not the people of Costa Rica... at the time the loans were made, the people had been engaged in a political and military struggle to bring democracy to their country.
The case was heard by Chief Justice Taft of the US supreme Court who fully upheld the repudiation of the debt"
The doctrine of odious debt was codified by Alexander Sack, a professor of law in France, who argued come organs of a real dual power, that governments who invoked the doctrine would have to prove that the debt ill-served the public interest and that the creditors were well aware of this.
Few countries suffering under the yoke of debts imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank or commercial banks would have much difficultly proving such a case. Certainly post-Mobuto Congo and today's South Africa would qualify.
Using Sack's principles, the AIDC report argued that all debts incurred during the Apartheid regime are illegitimate. " "The United Nations and the International Court of Justice were the most authoritative of international bodies that proclaimed apartheid to be a crime against humanity".
At the end of 1990, 87 per cent of South Africa's outstanding debt was owed to the banks of five countries, with Britain heading the list. British banks accounted for 28 per cent of these loans.
Will the Labour government in Britain rise to the golden opportunity that this issue presents to demonstrate its real concern for the poor of the world - or are Robin Cook and Clare Short's sound bites on a new climate of international relations not meant to be taken seriously?
Pressure must be exerted on the British government to head the international campaign for the repudiation of these obnoxious debts.
The campaign for the cancellation of Apartheid's debt is an urgent task for the international labour movement, as is supporting the battle against debt and the structural adjustment policies which accompany it." Declaration of the United