-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas E Ambrogi <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 28 August 1999 16:33
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Unchaining Slaves of National Debt
>[ Moderator: Jubilee 2000 USA is located at http://www.j2000usa.org/ ]
>
>http://www.natcath.com/public/032699a.htm
>
>National Catholic Reporter
>
>March 26, 1999
>
>Goal for 2000: unchaining slaves of national debt
>
>By THOMAS E. AMBROGI <[log in to unmask]>
>
>On May 16, 1998, representatives of the eight wealthiest nations in the
>world -- known as the Group of 8, or G8 -- held their annual summit
>meeting in Birmingham, England. An astounding throng of 70,000 people from
>all over the United Kingdom was assembled there by the Jubilee 2000
>Campaign, to create a human chain seven miles long around the conference
>center and to raise the chant of "Break the chains of debt," calling for
>cancellation of the crushing debt of impoverished countries by the year
>2000.
>
>It was the first audible cry of a roar for justice that is beginning to be
>heard in every corner of the world, and that calls for echoing action in
>the churches of the United States.
>
>The Jubilee 2000 -- or J2K -- Campaign is a coalition of unprecedented
>international breadth and vitality that has grown dramatically around the
>world in the past two years. The campaign has its roots in communities of
>faith, but it includes secular groups of every political stripe, all
>sharing a moral commitment to a debt-free fresh start for the world's
>poorest nations.
>
>It draws inspiration from the Year of Jubilee every 50 years described in
>Leviticus 25. But you don't have to be a believing Jew or Christian to
>rise to the vision of liberation projected in this remarkable movement.
>
>An English political economist at the University of Keele named Martin
>Dent first had the idea of linking the debt crisis to the concept of
>Jubilee and the millennium. In 1990, he began to circle the globe alone,
>gaining access to finance ministers and bank presidents to share debt
>cancellation tables and the Jubilee vision he had worked out. He finally
>raised enough initial funding, and the first tiny Jubilee 2000 office was
>opened in London in April of 1996.
>
>The international coalition that has since developed has organizing
>offices in some 60 countries on all five continents. Each national office
>shares a common logo of breaking chains and is exchanging ideas on the
>Internet. The first international conference of Jubilee 2000 was held in
>November 1998 in Rome, with 38 national J2K campaigns and 12 international
>organizations represented.
>
>That conference agreed to coordinate a Global Chain Reaction that will
>work toward a target of 22 million signatures -- the biggest petition in
>history -- to be delivered as part of an international event at the next
>Summit of the G8 countries on June 19 in Cologne, Germany.
>
>Strong calls for Third World debt cancellation have been issued by all
>world church bodies, including the Vatican, the U.S. Catholic Conference
>and numerous national bishops' conferences, the recent Lambeth Conference
>and the World Council of Churches Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe.
>
>Compared to the rest of the world, grassroots awareness on this issue is
>in its infancy in the United States. The Jubilee 2000/USA campaign was
>launched in June 1997, at the annual G8 Summit held in Denver. A national
>office was opened in early 1998 in Washington, and an excellent education
>packet is being distributed widely as an organizing tool in religious and
>community groups around the country.
>
>The U.S. campaign grew out of the Religious Working Group on the World
>Bank and the IMF, a coalition of some 40 Catholic and Protestant
>organizations that had been working on debt relief for several years. Its
>steering committee includes every major denomination and social justice
>organization in the faith community. The committee collaborates with the
>U.S. Catholic Conference and the National Council of Churches and hopes to
>develop similar working relationships in the Muslim and Jewish
>communities.
>
>The Year of Jubilee
>
>The context for the economic and political renewal being proposed lies in
>the "Jubilee" year as proclaimed in Leviticus 25, which called for a
>comprehensive remission of obligations to take place on every "Sabbath's
>Sabbath."
>
>"You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that
>the period ... gives 49 years. ... And you shall hallow the 50th year and
>proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants."
>
>The ram's horn call to Jubilee is an urgent mandate for overcoming the
>systemic structures of injustice and poverty. It is intended to bring a
>new beginning for all, to restore justice and equality and to protect and
>nurture the land. It is remarkable that the first call is for liberty of
>the land itself.
>
>In Chapter 25, we hear God say, "You shall grant a redemption of the
>land." It is a year of solemn rest, a fallow year for the sake of the
>land, when "all its yield shall be for food" and not for profit. And for
>the inhabitants, all leased or encumbered or forfeited land shall be
>returned to its original owners: "Each shall return to his property";
>slaves shall be redeemed and set free; and each community member shall be
>released from all debts.
>
>The Sabbath and Jubilee codes are also spelled out in Deuteronomy 15,
>especially in the call for every creditor to release what he has lent to
>his neighbor.
>
>Although there is no evidence that the Jubilee program was ever carried
>out, the theological premise of all these texts is that Jubilee
>restructuring of the community's assets is to remind Israel that the land
>belongs to God and that they are strangers and sojourners in the land, an
>Exodus people who must never return to a system of possessive slavery over
>one another.
>
>Isaiah 61 appropriates the Jubilee vision in the prophetic call to "bring
>good news to the poor and liberty to the captives" and to proclaim "the
>year of the Lord's favor." It was this text that Jesus of Nazareth chose,
>above all others, to define his mission and inaugurate his ministry in
>Luke 4. And it is this bold and central affirmation that relates the
>biblical notion of Jubilee to the mission to break the chains of debt in
>the impoverished countries of the world.
>
>The J2K platform addresses the debt of all impoverished countries. The
>campaign believes that, as a minimum, debt relief should be offered to the
>40 nations identified as "heavily indebted poor countries." Several key
>ideas in the five specific points of the platform should be highlighted.
>
>First, the call is to definitive debt cancellation -- not just reducing or
>rescheduling debt service.
>
>Second, only unpayable debts are under consideration.
>
>Third, the cancellation must not be conditioned on the drastic policy
>reforms currently demanded by structural adjustment programs, which
>perpetuate poverty and environmental degradation.
>
>Fourth, there must be recognition that both lenders and borrowers are
>responsible and that joint creative action is needed to recover resources
>that have been stolen by corrupt regimes.
>
>Finally, it must be cancellation that benefits ordinary people and on
>terms that are agreed to in a transparent and participatory process that
>will break the cycle of future debt.
>
>Scope, size of debt crisis
>
>Debt relief is an urgent matter of justice, not a plea for charity. The
>debt burden in the most impoverished nations is both economically
>unsustainable and morally unacceptable. Impoverished countries are
>economically trapped into making unending and compounding interest
>payments on their debts. This requires them to divert large amounts of
>scarce resources from health care, education and food security, ensuring
>that any real economic development will be impossible.
>
>Furthermore, ordinary people did not benefit from many of the loans that
>gave rise to this debt, but, under the rules of the global economic game,
>they bear the principal burden of repayment, keeping both them and future
>generations unjustly chained in dehumanizing poverty.
>
>Until one sees how foreign debt touches lives, it remains only an academic
>debate among economists and ministers of finance. The J2K Coalition aims
>to make sure that it is seen as more than that. Ethical analysis, rooted
>in human dignity, is as fundamental as economic analysis in solving the
>debt crisis.
>
>The overall global debt of all developing countries, according to United
>Nations statistics, was $567 billion in 1980 and $1.4 trillion in 1992. In
>that same 12-year period, total foreign debt payments from Third World
>countries amounted to $1.6 trillion. This means that, having already paid
>back three times over the $567 billion they had borrowed, far from being
>less in debt, in 1992 they owed 250 percent more than they owed in 1980.
>
>There are 40 countries that are described by the World Bank as "heavily
>indebted." They owe about $213 billion in foreign debts, according to
>World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Thirty-three of them are in Africa.
>
>Many African countries spend four times as much servicing debt each year
>as they do on health care and education for their citizens. It is reliably
>estimated that for every dollar given in development aid, three dollars
>come back to rich countries in debt-service payments.
>
>The debt that is held by impoverished countries is of three kinds:
>
>* Multilateral debt is owed to international financial institutions, such
>as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or regional development
>banks, such as the Inter-American Development Bank or the African
>Development Bank. Forty-five percent of debt owed by heavily impoverished
>nations is multilateral.
>
>* Bilateral debt is owed to individual governments, such as the United
>States, France and Japan. These governments meet in two groups: the Paris
>Group (United States, Japan and European nations) and the non-Paris Group
>(Asia and Eastern Europe). Forty-five percent of debt owed by heavily
>impoverished nations is bilateral.
>
>* Commercial debt is owed to international commercial banks, such as
>Citibank. Ten percent of heavily impoverished nations' debt is commercial.
>
>From the earliest days of the debt crisis, access to multimillion-dollar
>loans from the World Bank and IMF was made contingent on a country's
>agreement to carry out a drastic program of economic "liberalization."
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The rapid introduction of liberalization programs is terribly traumatic to
>a people already limping under the crushing burden of foreign debt.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>This array of monetary, budgetary, market and trade reforms have together
>come to be known as "Structural Adjustment Policies." The package varies
>in detail from country to country, but the main policies include: reducing
>the state's role in the economy, lowering barriers to imports, removing
>restrictions on foreign investment, raising taxes, eliminating subsidies
>for food staples and for local industries, reducing spending for social
>welfare, cutting wages, devaluing the currency and emphasizing production
>for export rather than for local consumption.
>
>Liberalization means freeing the economy from government control, in the
>presumption that a relatively unregulated free market will bring growth
>that trickles down for the benefit of everyone. But the rapid introduction
>of such programs is terribly traumatic to a people already limping under
>the crushing burden of foreign debt, as the history of every impoverished
>country has clearly shown.
>
>If all state-owned enterprises are privatized -- such as electricity,
>transport and communications -- many low-wage workers are likely to lose
>their jobs. When the national currency is devalued to make exports cheaper
>on the world market and unlimited foreign investment is encouraged, and
>tariffs and import quotas are lowered, local producers rapidly lose
>control of their own economy.
>
>Abolishing subsidies for local industries, raising interest rates and
>restricting credit will put many small enterprises out of business and
>bankrupt many small farmers.
>
>Structural adjustment policies demand that real wages be reduced, that
>taxes be increased and that government spending for health and welfare be
>reduced, all in order to balance the budget. And, finally, agricultural
>and industrial production must be shifted from food staples and basic
>goods for domestic use to export products that will bring in hard foreign
>currency.
>
>UNICEF regularly documents how the cost of such policies is borne
>disproportionately by the poor and their children. The austerity demanded
>in social spending and domestic policies, in order to demonstrate an
>impoverished nation's "fiscal responsibility," translates most directly
>into fewer social services for the poor, the elimination of consumer
>subsidies for basic food staples and public transportation, schools
>without teachers or textbooks, and health clinics without nurses or
>medicine. As Julius Nyerere, the great former president of Tanzania, has
>cried out, "Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
>
>The debt crisis first came to public attention in August 1982 when Mexico
>announced it could not pay the interest and principal due on its foreign
>debt. Some 25 other developing nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America
>(including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela), soon followed Mexico or
>threatened to do so. This was all unthinkable -- countries just did not go
>bankrupt -- and the issue of unrepayable debt has hounded the
>international community ever since.
>
>Among many other complex factors, much of the debt crisis can be traced
>back to 1973-74, when the OPEC countries quadrupled the price of oil.
>Oil-exporting countries had a surplus of $433 billion between 1974 and
>1981, so they deposited it in commercial banks in the United States,
>Europe and Japan. When these banks found themselves awash in new money,
>there was a rush to encourage -- even push -- developing countries to
>borrow, often at very low and variable rates of interest.
>
>In 1979-80, OPEC again doubled the price of oil. In the early to
>mid-1980s, there was a worldwide collapse of commodity prices, especially
>copper, and many African countries also suffered a severe drought that
>resulted in one of the worst famines of this century. When variable
>interest rates skyrocketed to more than 20 percent in just a few years,
>impoverished nations found themselves in an impossible position, far
>beyond what they had bargained for when they took their original loans.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Even the most notorious corruption did not discourage the lending.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>During the Cold War, donor governments (such as the United States) were
>often more interested in gaining allies than in whether receiving
>governments really served their people or whether the money went to
>productive purposes. Billions were lent by Northern governmental and
>multilateral creditors to repressive or irresponsible Third World
>governments for reasons the majority of their people neither knew about
>nor agreed with and from which they derived no benefit.
>
>Many projects were poorly designed or badly planned, buildings and power
>stations that were never completed and roads that led to nowhere. It was
>often wasteful misspending that left behind no productive capacity to
>repay the loans.
>
>Even the most notorious corruption did not discourage the lending: to
>Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Suharto in
>Indonesia, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. It was well-known by creditor
>banks that little of this money ever reached the people, and that most of
>it was being siphoned into Swiss bank accounts or wasted on repressive and
>self-serving military adventures.
>
>Cold War collusion and corruption left behind a dreadful heritage of now
>unpayable debt in Third World countries. In similar circumstances today,
>the leaders of post-apartheid South Africa call the unjust burdens they
>have inherited "odious debt" and declare that in justice it should simply
>be written off.
>
>Debt resulting from theft by oppressive elites creates complex ethical,
>economic and political challenges when the question of debt cancellation
>gets serious. But it simply reaffirms the undeniable principle that
>responsibility for the foreign debt crisis lies not only with the debtor
>nations but with debtors and creditors alike.
>
>It was with this in mind, for instance, that African countries asked
>Jubilee 2000 to use the word impoverished rather than poor to describe
>them, arguing that developing countries are actively being impoverished by
>the international political and financial system.
>
>As we have seen, J2K is not calling for the cancellation of all debt,
>carte blanche, but rather of debt that is unpayable. Determining a debt to
>be unpayable is not simply a bottom-line exercise of determining whether a
>debt can physically be paid or not. The calculation grid is far more
>complex than a simple balance sheet.
>
>Unpayable foreign debt can better be defined as debt whose repayment would
>cost such human suffering that no honorable creditor would seek to exact
>it. Debt should also be declared unpayable whenever the cost of debt
>service is more than the financial resources needed to achieve significant
>human development.
>
>A 1987 Vatican statement on the ethics of debt cancellation put it another
>way: "No government can morally demand of its people privations that are
>incompatible with human dignity" ("At the Service of the Human Community:
>An Ethical Approach to the International Debt Question").
>
>The most urgent unpayable debt is that of the 41 nations that are declared
>by the World Bank and the IMF to be heavily impoverished nations. The J2K
>campaign is both simple in its call and sophisticated in its analytical
>approach, with a careful focus on specific countries and specific debts.
>The reality is that almost all of the debt in these countries cannot and
>will not be repaid, and it is senseless for creditors to believe
>otherwise.
>
>These impoverished countries cannot develop healthy economies as long as
>millions of their people are being denied basic health care and education
>and earn wages so low that they can barely survive. Cancellation of this
>crushing debt burden is the most practical way to reduce poverty and
>restart impoverished economies, as well as to protect the global
>environment -- which undergoes enormous degradation under the pressure to
>develop export markets to meet the demands of debt repayment.
>
>True market value
>
>Because the face value, or official amount, of these debts will never be
>repaid, the true market value of the debts is only a fraction of their
>face value. Bilateral debts of impoverished nations to the U.S.
>government, for instance, are heavily discounted, generally worth only
>about 10-15 percent of the original loan. Donor nations and lending
>institutions will not suffer to any great extent by writing off these
>debts, since contributions needed would be based on true market value.
>
>In effect, Western governments received what they paid for -- support in
>the Cold War -- and they have already been well repaid over many years of
>debt servicing.
>
>There are numerous precedents for debt relief, including cancellation. In
>1953, Germany negotiated an accord with the Allied powers in which, in
>addition to having about 80 percent of its war debt written off, it was
>required to use only 3 to 5 percent of export earnings to pay back the
>rest of its foreign debt. Impoverished nations are currently required to
>use 20-25 percent of their earnings for debt repayment, and it is ironic
>that Germany now sits on the IMF Board that enforces that stringent
>demand.
>
>In the late 1980s, creditor countries cancelled about 50 percent of
>Poland's debt, as the Iron Curtain was beginning to come down. In 1991,
>the United States forgave $7 billion in debt that Egypt owed, in gratitude
>for Egyptian assistance in the Gulf War.
>
>Here at home, a Stanford University study showed that the U.S. government
>bailout of savings and loans companies in the early 1990s will cost the
>American people $1.36 trillion over the 40-year life of the bonds that
>have been floated to make good those irresponsible and illegal
>transactions in junk bonds. Most American taxpayers are unaware just how
>generous they have been in cancelling that debt for the S&Ls, or that they
>are paying depositors 100 percent of their loss rather than only up to the
>$100,000 maximum usually covered by FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance
>Corporation.
>
>No argument can be made that, as a nation, we simply cannot afford the
>money required for debt cancellation in the impoverished nations. The
>question is political will, not economic possibility.
>
>J2K supports the cancellation of crushing international debt because the
>biblical calls to Jubilee and to care for the poor are compelling, and
>because it is simply the right thing to do. At the same time, however, in
>an increasingly globalized world there are many practical reasons why it
>is in the enlightened self-interest of industrialized nations to relieve
>the debt burden of impoverished countries, and these reasons have their
>own persuasive power.
>
>First, a major governing principle of the capitalist economic system is
>the need for ever-expanding markets. The huge debts of impoverished
>nations and the rigid imposition of structural adjustment austerity
>frequently lead to social conflict, political instability and government
>repression. When this is added to crumbling infrastructures and a poorly
>educated and unhealthy workforce, it is unrealistic to expect foreign
>investment and market development.
>
>Greater political stability and economic possibility would make lower
>income countries better markets for goods and services and more attractive
>to corporate investors.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Environmental damage on a vast scale does not respect national borders.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Second, the need to repay foreign debt in hard currencies like U.S.
>dollars usually results in lax environmental protection and the misuse of
>natural resources. Unmanageable debt service easily translates into soils
>that are eroded and toxically depleted in the rush to raise cash crops,
>into waters that are polluted and overfished, into clear-cut rain forests
>and unregulated mining practices.
>
>Environmental damage on such a vast scale does not respect national
>borders, and rich countries must realize that the impact of this damage is
>also felt in their own backyard. The debt burden carried by impoverished
>countries has global repercussions and impoverishes us all.
>
>To call for Third World debt cancellation is in effect to take on all the
>major social and economic issues at once, and the focus of one's analysis
>continually widens. Migration patterns, for instance, are directly related
>to economic possibilities that have been wiped out by the demands of debt
>repayment. As the president of the Latin American Bishops' Conference has
>recently said, "When there is no development in the South, migrants will
>continue flowing north, because it's a situation of despair."
>
>International drug traffic is likewise related to the debt crisis. To
>repay their high international debt, the major drug-producing nations need
>hard currency from drug-consuming countries like the United States. The
>sale of cocaine and opium produces that hard currency, and the cycle of
>the drug fix continues.
>
>In 1996, there was a major shift by the IMF and the member nations of the
>World Bank when they announced the "Heavily Indebted Poor Country
>Initiative." The event was historic because the Bretton Woods
>institutions, for all the 50 years of their existence, had never
>considered writing off or rescheduling the debts owed to them. The intent
>of the initiative was to reduce a debtor nation's overall burden to a
>"sustainable" level, and that was in itself groundbreaking in the long
>history of international debt negotiations.
>
>Too little too late
>
>But many nongovernmental organizations and faith-based groups view the
>initiative as flawed in its design and intent. The criteria to qualify are
>too strict, the amounts offered are too small and the length of time
>required to prove credit-worthiness is too long, so that the whole process
>is simply too little and too late. Furthermore, in addition to continuing
>to insist on an array of structural adjustment programs, the initiative is
>intended only to restore a debtor country's ability to repay its loans,
>without any real consideration of debt cancellation.
>
>In November of 1998, the peoples of Central America suffered the ravages
>of Hurricane Mitch, which wiped out decades of painful development effort.
>There are a few hopeful rays of light in steps that have been taken by the
>international financial community to address this disaster.
>
>Nicaragua and Honduras, among the poorest nations in the hemisphere, with
>nearly half their people living below the poverty line, are the focus of
>most international attention. Honduras owes about $4.1 billion to
>international creditors, which is almost one-third of the government's
>total revenue last year. It takes $400 million a year to service that
>debt.
>
>Nicaragua owes about $6.1 billion, the highest per capita debt in the
>world. That takes $254 million a year to service, which is about 52
>percent of all its export revenue and almost three times the country's
>spending on health and education combined.
>
>Honduras needs to rebuild more than 170 bridges destroyed by Hurricane
>Mitch and to build new housing for more than 2 million homeless persons.
>Whole villages were washed away. Whole banana plantations -- not just
>their crops -- were washed away. There will not be another banana for
>export from Honduras for at least two and probably three years. Chiquita
>Banana and United Fruit shareholders will no doubt come down on their feet
>with tax writeoffs, but thousands of campesinos will have no work whatever
>for months and perhaps years ahead.
>
>George Bush came down right away and offered condolences, but no mention
>of possible debt cancellation. Hillary Clinton visited the area in
>mid-November, announcing a two-year moratorium on U.S. debt repayments --
>offering to postpone, but not cancel, $54 million that the two countries
>were scheduled to repay through the year 2000.
>
>Then, in December, a crisis consultation was called in Washington between
>the affected countries and the Paris Club ministers of finance, including
>the United States. Word finally came in early January that the Paris Club
>has agreed to forgive 80 percent of Nicaragua's debt, consider a similar
>reduction for Honduras and postpone for three years all payments on both
>countries' loans.
>
>Full details of all this are still hard to come by, but it is a historic
>event and should be saluted as such. It will free more than $400 million
>for reconstruction in the area. Advocates of Jubilee 2000 hope it will
>serve as an example for future deliberations on the Jubilee cancellation
>of debt.
>
>Still more promising are two broader initiatives on the international
>scene. In mid-January, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder launched his
>own proposal for alleviating the burdens of the most indebted nations,
>calling on the G8 nations to make this a priority at their June summit in
>Cologne.
>
>Given Germany's regrettable history of foot-dragging on this issue in
>World Bank/IMF deliberations, and given the fact that Schroeder will play
>host to the next G8 meeting in Cologne, his remarkable initiative should
>be applauded and encouraged in every possible political arena. This is,
>after all, the same June meeting of the G8 in Cologne to which the J2K
>Campaign hopes to bring 22 million signatures on a world-wide petition
>with the same objectives.
>
>At the 1999 World Economic Forum in late January, which brought together
>2,000 movers and shakers of the international financial community in
>Davos, Switzerland, Vice President Al Gore made a similar plea for a
>debt-relief plan for impoverished nations. Without giving any details, he
>pledged a new U.S.-led initiative to eliminate the debt burdens of
>developing countries, relieving them of their current burden of interest
>payments.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The energy and speed with which the Jubilee 2000 Campaign has spread
>around the world is without precedent in international movements.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>According to The New York Times, Gore promised that the Clinton budget
>being sent to Capitol Hill would include "significant new U.S. funding" to
>pay off debts of impoverished nations, many in Africa, but further news
>reports never made mention of such a budget initiative. It may be hoped,
>however, that the pledge made by Gore at Davos would imply the
>administration's support for debt cancellation legislation, which will
>certainly be introduced in the 106th Congress this year.
>
>The energy and speed with which the Jubilee 2000 Campaign has spread
>around the world is without precedent in international movements. The
>extraordinary human chain that is being forged around the debt crisis is a
>sign of something new afoot -- a significant new momentum and an
>international awakening that declares that new beginnings are indeed
>possible for the poor, if only the political will can be generated to make
>that happen.
>
>The hidden blessing in the debt crisis may be that it will force the world
>toward a new global order, and there is more than a hint of this vision in
>the realistically ambitious goals of Jubilee 2000. To achieve the goal of
>debt cancellation in the most impoverished countries would put the world
>on the road toward creating humane alternatives beyond self-interest,
>economic systems in which conscious commitments to justice and compassion,
>rather than blind mechanisms or invisible hands, are counted on to make
>things right between peoples.
>
>If significant cancellation of debt is achieved, it will by its very
>nature force a widening range of new political and economic initiatives
>that will be revolutionary beyond our imagining. Traditional structural
>adjustment requirements will be replaced with adjustment programs that
>better meet the needs of poor people and promote participatory and
>equitable human development.
>
>A moment to grasp
>
>This, in turn, will force the governments of developing nations to ensure
>support for basic needs such as education, nutrition and health care, to
>prevent environmental degradation, to reduce inappropriate levels of
>military spending, to effectively seek recovery of resources that were
>diverted to corrupt regimes, and -- most important of all -- to develop
>democratic, transparent processes unique to each nation whereby debts will
>not be cancelled nor new loans ever again assumed without popular debate
>and the participation of civil society.
>
>The millennium is a key moment in time, a kairos, a moment that must be
>grasped. The Jubilee 2000 initiative clearly is poised to make a radical
>difference in our connectedness with a developing world that deserves more
>than the share it is getting of the riches of God's good earth.
>
>The J2K Coalition has already demonstrated that it has the potential to
>develop a broad convergence of political, economic and moral forces such
>as that which once ended slavery, and, in our time, apartheid. An
>effective political network is what urgently needs building, especially in
>the churches and the wider faith communities in this country.
>
>The convergence will not hold indefinitely. For the sake of the brothers
>and the sisters, we dare not let the millennial moment pass us by.
>
>
>Thomas E. Ambrogi is a theologian and human rights advocate who lives with
>his wife in Pilgrim Place, an ecumenical community of retired church
>professionals in Claremont, Calif.
>
>Copyright (c) 1999 National Catholic Reporter
>
>
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