Human Rights Day 2004: Delegates of thirteen countries demand external debt cancellation Delegates participating in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, in the Central America and Caribbean Encounter on “Illegitimate Debt and Debt Auditing”, organized by the debt mobilization network Jubilee South, in commemoration of International Human Rights Day, December 10, denounce that the policies pushed by the United States, its partners in the G7, and the International Financial Institutions, in order to compel the countries of the region to repay their external debts, condemn their peoples to a life of permanent poverty and underdevelopment, while the elites who benefit from the mounting levels of debt continue to enjoy total impunity. The representatives of popular organizations and movements from Santa Lucia, Jamaica, Cuba, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Italy, consider that in a situation in which governments often are dedicating as much as 40 to 65% of their annual budgets to the servicing of a debt that has already been repaid several times over, the fact that it continues to be paid on the basis of the daily sacrifices of the popular sectors should serve to unite the broadest possible movement in each country in a great national, regional, continental and worldwide crusade to demand not only cancellation of the external debt but also the payment, restoration, and reparation of the tremendous social, ecological and historical debt that the developed North has accumulated with the South. In this same spirit we reaffirm our rejection of the Free Trade Agreements (Central American FTA, Dominican Republic/USA, FTA Panamá/USA, and FTA Haiti/USA and we demand that the respective governments and legislative assemblies do NOT ratify them. We also express our rejection of the militarization of the region and the process of privatization of public services (water, lights, telephone, health, social security, education, etc) in as much as they represent new forms of control and domination by the United States government and large corporate interests. We are in solidarity with the people of Haiti in their resistance to military occupation and their firm determination to defend their sovereignty and advance in the building of a just and sustainable society. We share as well in their demand for the cancellation and reparation of an odious and illegitimate external debt that continues to be collected from the most impoverished people of our America. The delegations further emphasize that there is no better moment than December 10, International Human Rights Day, nor any better place that the historic city of Santo Domingo, where the colonial enterprise and the great debt of the North to the peoples of the Americas were initiated, together with the indigenous, black and popular resistance which continues to this day in the demand for nonpayment of the illegitimate External Debt and a just redistribution of wealth. JUBILEE SOUTH CENTRAL AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN GATHERING “Illegitimacy of the External Debt and Debt Auditing” – Santo Domingo, December 10, 2004 CIEM-Cuba
Red Sinti Techan-El Salvador
PAPDA/JSA-Haiti
UNNOH – Haití
Bloque Popular-Honduras
West Indies Univ.-Jamaica
CNCP-Martinique
CEI-Nicaragua
Pastoral Social/Caritas-Panama
Puertr. Cont. ALCA-Puerto Rico
Asamblea de los Pueblos del Caribe APC – Rep.Dom.
COPADEBA – Rep. Dom.
CUP – Rep. Dom.
FENTRANO-Rep. Dom.
CAFRA-Santa Lucía
Jubileo Sur-Argentina
Unione Inquilini-Italia For more information, please contact: JUBILEE SOUTH/AMERICAS
jubileosur@wamani.apc.org
www.jubileesouth.org/sp