United Nations Secretary General António Guterres posted on July 18: “COVID-19 has exposed the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all.... We are all floating on the same sea, but some are in super-yachts and others clinging to drifting debris.” And he headed a statement, with seven other former national officials and other prominents, calling for debt cancellation. This came at the same time that South Africa’s trade minister told a BRICS meeting that “domestic investment” in production and new infrastructure, and not globalization, is necessary for countries facing growing food shortage and hunger (see report in this Briefing). Debt cancellation and successful “domestic investment” are not the same strategy.
Guterres and the others, as reported in Consortium News July 24, said: “Debt suspension or postponement does not provide a foundation for the necessary development of these countries. It merely puts off the reckoning. It is beyond time for the cancellation of these odious debts, which cannot — in any case — be paid during the coronavirus recession. Both public and private creditors took a risk with their investments. They exploited the needs of developing countries by lending money with obscene interest rates; it is time that they paid the price for this risk rather than force countries with meagre resources to pay out precious capital.” Those making the statement were Dilma Rousseff (former President of Brazil); T.M. Thomas Isaac (Finance Minister, Kerala, India); Yanis Varoufakis (former Finance Minister, Greece); Jorge Arreaza (Foreign Minister, Venezuela); Fred M’membe (President, Socialist Party, Zambia); Juan Grabois (Frente Patria Grande, Argentina); and Vijay Prashad (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).”
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/24/covid-19-time-to-cancel-foreign-debt-is-overdue/
