At the 2005 G-8 summit in Scotland, the industrialized nations leaders declared a debt cancellation for the poorest countries in the world.
But what was on their mind wasn’t "making poverty history".

The G8 debt cancellation agreement is a clever effort to gain a positive, moral and caring image for the rich countries and a scandalous effort to atone for the crimes made by them towards the poor throughout history. Crimes that began with colonialism and continued with its present modern and more complex form - THE DEBT.

The existence of unsustainable debt burdens, trade injustice and aid dependency are the results of a global economic system and a financial architecture precisely designed to favor the wealthy, and to ensure the survival of the existing structure of rich countries dominance.

The debt is not a financial or an economic issue, but rather a political one in every aspect. It is a method of oppression. A modern colonial method of control by rich countries. A form of debt bondage on the scale of nations.

It is the best instrument of power and control of North over South [and now east] ever invented, far superior to colonialism which requires an army, public administration and attracts bad press. Control through debt not only requires no infrastructure but it actually makes people pay for their own oppression.

The debt cancellation is no more than a compassion spin. But first we need to understand what the debt is and how it was created in the first place.

The Origin of the Debt

In the 1980s, as market prices for export of commodities declined and international interest rates skyrocketed, many African countries found themselves in economic crisis, unable to repay mounting foreign debts. In desperate need of new loans to pay off these debts, they turned to the World Bank and to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which were very willing to lend them money, as long as they instituted certain economic policy changes in return. These changes, called "structural adjustment programs", adjusted the economies of borrower countries to suit the interests of the wealthiest players in the global economy. This meant that the economic direction of each country would be planned, monitored, and controlled by the World Bank and the IMF.

'Liberal containment' was replaced by laissez-faire capitalism known as the free market. African countries, in need of these loans, had no choice but to accept the conditions attached.
Over the past two decades, Africa's debt crisis has worsened, and the failure of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund economic policies has left African countries more dependent than ever on new loans. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, now major creditors to African governments, have gained total control over many African economies.

The Wrong Debtors

Many of the loans, which are being repaid, were made during the Cold War to repressive regimes and corrupt leaders, who used the money to strengthen their rule or to fill their own pockets.
Many more loans were made without attention to the viability of planned projects or to the capacity of the recipient country to make repayments. Very little of the money filtered its way down to make any real difference in the lives of the ordinary african people. But it is ordinary people who suffer now because of the debt - people who were probably not even born when the loans were made.

Demanding that these people and their new governments will pay now for the corruption and mismanagement practiced by previous regimes is simply an outrage.

Liability Confusion

Africa's debt burden and the eager pursuit for repayments by international creditors have had severe repercussions on the continent's development.
Forced cutbacks in basic social services have weakened health and education systems and undermined efforts to cope with the AIDS pandemic.
Africa's children are suffering from malnutrition and are being denied the right to education by creditors who are determined to bleed Africa's economies dry.
Meanwhile, the world's rich countries continue to ignore the huge debt that they owe Africa and the global South more broadly, for centuries of plundering humans and the environment.

The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy. They neither conquered nor plundered entire continents for centuries, they did not establish colonialism, or re-established slavery, and modern imperialism is not of their making.
Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore, the responsibility lies with those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today the benefits of those atrocities. The western world who sucked Africa's blood, won't stop until someone stop it.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank

The debt is administered by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which are largely controlled by the G-8 governments (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, U.K and U.S.A.).

Decisions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are made by a vote of the Board of Executive Directors, which represents member countries.
Voting power at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund is determined by the level of a nation's financial contribution. Therefore, the United States has roughly 17% of the vote, with the seven other largest industrialized countries in the world, holding a total of 50% of the votes. Because of the scale of its contribution, the United States has always had a dominant voice and has at all times exercised an effective veto. At the same time, developing countries have relatively little power within the institution, which through the programs and policies, governed by the International Monetary Fund, have tremendous impact on them. Furthermore, the President of the World Bank is by tradition an American, and the International Monetary Fund President is a European.

The International Monetary Fund has been using and abusing its "recommendations", which have acquired a binding force, to liberalize world trade, devalue currencies, deregulate prices, freeze wages, reduce health and education budgets, and privatize state-owned enterprises at whatever cost.

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP)

In order to obtain more foreign currency, governments who implement structural adjustment programs usually have to:
• Spend less on health, education and social services - people pay for them or live without.
• Devalue the national currency, lowering export earnings and increasing import costs.
• Cutback on food subsidies - so prices of essential products can soar in a matter of days.
• Cut jobs and wages for workers in government industries and services.
• Encourage privatization of public industries, including sale to foreign investors.
• Take over small subsistence farms for large-scale export crop farming instead of staple foods. So farmers are left with no land to grow their own vegetables on and only few are employed on the large farms.

The structural adjustment policy package includes: privatization, slashing of government spending, trade liberalization and opening to exploitative foreign investment. It is at its core, by no doubt anti-poor policy.
The ideologies and rules of economic globalization – including free trade (opening to exploitative foreign investment), deregulation, privatization, slashing of government spending, and the structural adjustment programs– have destroyed the lives of millions of people, often leaving them homeless, landless and hungry, while removing their access to even the most basic public services such as health and medical care, education, sanitation, fresh water, public transport, job training and etc.

Race to the Bottom

For poor countries, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's emphasis on exports is to a considerable extent, an open invitation for corporations to exploit cheap labor as a "competitive advantage". But with countries around the world all forced to follow the same strategy, relying on cheap labor becomes a "race to the bottom".

20 years of experience have shown that these financial policies, which are far from promoting fair and equitable development, have had a brutal effect on the most vulnerable strata of society, particularly indigenous populations.

Over the past two decades, as part of structural adjustment, the World Bank has forced African governments to reduce government spending on health care. This has resulted in the closure of hundreds of hospitals and clinics, and has left the remaining medical facilities under-staffed and lacking essential supplies. Under the tutelage of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, spending on health care was reduced by 50% during the 1980s in the 42 poorest countries in Africa.

The World Bank must take a large degree of responsibility for this situation. It is an institution that represents global minority rule, and it has used its power to exploit African countries for the benefit of its stakeholders and denies Africa's people the right to health.

Cash Crops

Serious environmental destruction began in many poor countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Easy money was available from industrialized countries for 'development'. Much of it was spent on large dam projects, power plants and charcoal driven industries. These usually didn't help the poor, and destroy the lives of those who don’t use money but still are the poorest beings in the world - Nonhuman Animals.

As debts mounted, what poorer countries needed most was foreign currency to pay back their debts. One easy solution was to suck the earth's resources for the hard currency they brought in, and cut back on environmental conservation programs.

Indebted countries have done this by:
Heavily overusing soil to grow "cash crops" (tea, coffee, sugar, cotton, tobacco…) often forcing small farmers off their land.
Producing more crops on the same areas of land, often using chemical fertilizers, and so degrading the soil.
Giving multinational companies logging rights in the forests, destroying the lives of those who live there, especially nonhuman animals.
Chopping down forests to make room for crop farming or in the much worse case - cows grazing.

The Drugs Industry

As indebted countries struggle to pay back their debts, they have to export as much goods as possible and cut back on imports. This might seem like a good way to earn money. But in fact they don't earn as much as they should, because many indebted countries are exporting similar products, flooding the market. Therefore prices are plummeting. So again and as usual and definitely not by chance, the beneficiaries are western consumers who get to pay cheap prices for many basic commodities. Of course it is not surprising as they are both the main consumers and the policy makers.

Getting very low prices on their goods, causes many to look for other income sources. Millions of Americans and Europeans regularly use illegal drugs. Governments across the Western world have poured money into the struggle against drugs. The narcotics market in Europe is expanding rapidly, contributing to social breakdown and violent crimes. But in all their strategies to fight against drug trafficking, no government has come up with a solution which tackles one of the factors making it possible - international debt. Almost all the major drug-producing countries also have high international debts.
To repay debts they need hard currency from the sale of commodities - like cocoa, whose value has been falling. Meanwhile, cocaine prices have been rising, so countries turn to the drug trade to raise foreign currency and to survive.

Military Spending

Many poor countries have become deeply indebted because of high military spending. As wars escalate, they are less able to repay the money they owe.
Between 1960 and 1987 poor countries’ governments borrowed around 400 billion dollars to fund arms imports from industrial states.

Arms trade of poor countries has declined after a peak in the late 1980s. Most of the dictators who invested so heavily in arms are no longer in power and today's governments are not buying as many arms as they once did. But the debts are still left to pay.

Debt can also lead and contribute to war.
As countries become poorer, violence and protest increase. As the debt crisis broke in the early 1980s, violence in many indebted countries erupted into war or escalated dramatically.

The world spends about 1.6 trillion dollars on military expenditure per year.
That is a 50% increase in one decade.
About half is spent by the US alone and about third by the other G8 nations.
The world’s top 5 arm dealers are the 5 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: USA, UK, France, Russia and China.
They are responsible for almost 90% of the reported conventional arms export.
American weapons are regularly sold to nations currently involved in active conflicts.
About 7.5 million people are injured by armed violence every year.
2 bullets are produced each year for every person on the planet.
Apparently there's always money for death and destruction.

So What is Wrong with the Debt Cancellation?

First of all it doesn’t take into account the fact that many countries are paying off illegitimate debts – such as those on loans knowingly given to dictators, or for useless projects that only benefited companies in the lenders’ country.

The process is aimed not at canceling debts, but at ensuring that they can be repaid. It has nothing to do with reducing poverty, serving justice or compassion towards humans. It is designed to reduce debt figures down to a level where they would be deemed "sustainable" again according to the criteria of the International Monetary Fund.

Debt relief will be granted only if the poor countries agree that their gross assistance flows are reduced by the amount of the debt relief. In other words, their aid will be reduced by the same amount as the debt relief.

It is still completely designed, controlled, monitored and implemented by creditors, the IMF and World Bank (which created the problems of the poorer countries in the first place) and with little or no voice for people in poor countries who are experiencing the debt crisis.

The countries must fulfill structural adjustment programs that eliminate impediments to private investment and call countries to privatize industries, liberalize their economies, eliminate subsidies, and reduce budgetary expenditures.

It does not cover the debts claimed by the Inter-American Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Other critical areas, such as the 2004 tsunami-hit regions, are not included.

And most importantly:
The G8 statement does not express any measure of acknowledgment of blame of the historical and structural causes of debt and poverty.

Remaining Debts

The global south financial debt owed to the North is at once… Fraudulent, odious, illegal, illegitimate, obscene and immoral.
Countries of the North owe the South countries, particularly Africa, a manifold debt: Blood debt for the slavery.
Ecological debt for the destruction and looting of natural resources.
Social debt for causing and enhancing unemployment, mass poverty and hunger.
Economic debt for the colonization, and the looting of human and mineral resources.
And cultural debt for the degrading of African civilizations to justify colonization.

Debt and structural adjustment plans (SAPs) are the causes for the degradation of health, education, nutrition, food security, and the environmental and sociocultural values of the African and the rest of the indebted countries populations.
The Debt and the SAPs are the cause for the aggravation of unemployment and the destruction of families leading to the rise of delinquency and prostitution, the worsening of women’s socio-economic conditions and daily life, and the ecological degradation of the continent.

Counting on politicians, lawyers, lobbyists, celebrities is obviously very naïve.
However as activists you do rely on humanity as a whole to revolutionize the world.
That is just as naïve.
None of them would save the world from all the suffering.
You Will.