ECUADOR: Indians Ask Paris Club for Debt Write-off
[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
September 16, 2000
By Kintto Lucas
QUITO, Sep 15 (IPS) - Indigenous activists from Ecuador have asked the Paris Club, a group of creditor governments, for the cancellation of their country's foreign debt, specifying that these resources must be earmarked for social development projects.
Blanca Chancoso, a leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) presented the request to Paris Club secretary-general Francois Perol at a meeting in Paris.
Perol initially refused to receive the indigenous leader, claiming he was too busy, but later changed his mind.
Chancoso explained to Perol that she had travelled to the French capital to inform him that the Ecuadorian indigenous peoples are tired of hearing that the negotiations to restructure the nation's foreign debt were being conducted by ''people speaking on their behalf, but defending other interests.''
In meetings held Wednesday through Friday this week in Paris, official delegates from Ecuador won an extension of the payment dates for 880 million of the 1.03 billion dollars it owes the wealthy nations gathered under the Paris Club.
In her meeting with the secretary-general, the CONAIE representative outlined the vision of the indigenous peoples for Ecuador's future. The South American nation is currently immersed in a deep recession, which its government hopes to reverse by adopting the US dollar as the national currency.
''We ask for the cancellation of the debt by the Paris Club with the condition that those resources be used for productive, health and educational development, with citizen and local government participation in the process,'' Chancoso stated.
She emphasised that this is the only way to ensure that ''the management of the funds is handled transparently and benefits the Ecuadorian people.''
Chancoso told Perol she intends to meet with the other representatives of the lender countries, but he responded that it would be impossible because only the government of President Gustavo Noboa is authorised to speak on behalf of Ecuadorians before the Paris Club.
But Perol did promise to present a copy of the CONAIE proposal to each one of the group's member nations.
At the end of the interview, Chancoso commented that her trip to France was the mandate of the indigenous and peasant communities that support the international movement to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries, known as Jubilee 2000, led by the Catholic Church.
''We want to live. We are tired of paying. But the money that would no longer be paid on the debt must serve to improve the conditions of our peoples, otherwise the debt cancellation would only fill the pockets of the rich who contracted the debt and continue asking for loans that we all have to pay back,'' she said.
The Paris Club ended its three-day negotiations with Ecuadorian government representatives Friday. The delegates obtained the restructuring of 880 million dollars of the country's external debt just days after Ecuador officially adopting the dollar as its national currency.
Welfare Minister, Ra£l Pati¤o, who participated in the debt talks, assured that Ecuador this year would dedicate 81 percent of its income to meeting its foreign obligations.
The nation's external debt surpasses 14 billion dollars, 1.03 billion of which corresponds to loans granted by the Paris Club member countries.
Jubilee 2000 activists from Ecuador, Germany, Great Britain and Norway staged protests this week outside the creditors' Paris headquarters in support of the indigenous leader.
Minister Pati¤o and governmental delegates Jorge Gallardo, Francisco Arozemena and Galo Galarza told the activists that the conditions were not appropriate for requesting a reduction of the debt principal.
The delegation asked only for an extension of the schedule for payments to reduce the annual debt service total.
For Chancoso, the postponement of payments ''not only fails to reduce the debt, but implies an increase.''
The negotiations have only dealt with the financial calculations in order to comply with Ecuador's overdue payments, agreed Jubilee 2000 representatives.
Gallardo, Ecuador's lead negotiator in the Paris talks, said that once conditions improve, the team would return - probably in April 2001 - to ask for a reduction of the debt principal.
The CONAIE proposal establishes that indigenous peoples and civil society organisations would invest funds made available through debt write-offs ''in programmes for social and cultural development and environmental conservation.''
The projects would encompass education, obtaining legal titles for peasant and indigenous-held lands and protection of the environment, particularly in Ecuador's Amazon region.
CONAIE also asks the government to establish the basis for a ''deep economic and social restructuring through a democratic process that promotes the creation of equitable and participatory foundations in Ecuador.''
For the Ecuadorian indigenous movement, the foreign debt is a national problem that must be treated in an integral way, through a State policy that ''gathers the criteria and participation of the different sectors of Ecuadorian society.''
''The creditor countries must understand that they would also benefit from debt cancellation, whether through an increase in international trade, re-establishing conditions for investment or improving the world's social and political climate,'' stressed Chancoso.
The indigenous leader cited the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights in emphasising that the rights of peoples in debtor nations to food, housing, clothing, employment, education, health services and a healthy environment cannot be subordinated to the adjustment policies dictated by foreign debt.
The programmes CONAIE proposes to develop with the resources coming from debt write-offs would be designed and executed with the participation of local communities, municipal governments and non-governmental organisations.
''The resources made available by this operation will not be subtracted from previously budgeted social expenditures and investments, nor will they be used to pay other kinds of debts, or wasted on the purchase of weapons or expansion of useless bureaucracies,'' says the proposal.
To monitor the use of the resources, the indigenous proposal calls for establishing a commission that would include the participation of the countries granting debt cancellations and of civil society groups.
''This commission would ensure that the funds released are invested exclusively in programmes identified as priorities by Ecuador's civil society,'' Chancoso affirmed.
A Social and Ecological Fund, in the hands of civil society representatives, would administer the financial resources obtained through debt relief.
As part of the debt cancellation process, the CONAIE proposal calls for a commitment from the Noboa government to establish limits on how much debt the country can contract, balance public accounts and provide information on who runs up the debts and for what purposes.
''The possibility of international arbitration to resolve the debt issue is another option that merits evaluation, because we cannot continue in a situation in which the creditors serve as both judge and defendant,'' Chancoso concluded.