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May 1, 2008

Debt cancellation movement marks 10 years of campaigning

by Trevor Grundy
Ecumenical News International

CANTERBURY, England — Christians and members of other faiths have been asked to say special prayers for the cancellation of the debt of the world’s poorest countries on May 18, and other days during the week that marks the 10th anniversary of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

“We have achieved so much over the last decade,” says Sarah Williams, the London-based senior policy and campaign manager at Jubilee, “but there is still so much more to do.”

The Jubilee Debt Campaign came into being in 2001, as the successor to the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which had sought debt cancellation to mark the beginning of a new millennium.

Major international debt cancellation schemes have so far written off $88 billion in debt, the group says on its Web site (www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk). In 2005, however, total external debt of the very poorest countries, which have an annual average income of less than $875 per person, was $379 billion.

The campaign started on May 16,1998 when 70,000 people formed a human chain around the International Conference Center in Birmingham, where leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized countries were meeting. Thousands of people are expected to meet in Birmingham on May 16, to mark the anniversary.

“In Birmingham we will be celebrating what the Drop the Debt Campaign has achieved to date, demanding that politicians finish the job,” Williams told Ecumenical News International.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign is a coalition of national organizations and local and regional groups calling for the “100 percent cancellation of unpayable and unfair poor country debts.”

The anniversary events start in London on May 2 when supporters of an organization called JustShare demonstrate outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London, Britain’s financial center.

JustShare works with a number of groups including Christian Aid, the Christian Socialist Movement, and the United Reformed Church.

The anniversary takes place at a time of international belt-tightening because of the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States and a credit squeeze in Britain and other parts of the world.