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THIS SATURDAY AND Sunday, to mark debt justice group Debt and Development Coalition Ireland’s 20th anniversary, local and international debt campaigners will converge in Ballyhea and Charleville, Co Cork. In this intense period of global financial crisis, campaigners from across Ireland, from the UK and Argentina will share stories of people’s victories in the face of debt crises, and chart out strategies in the fight for international debt justice.
The choice of location is deliberate and significant. Ballyhea and Charleville are the homes of the small but determined communities showing consistent opposition to Ireland’s illegitimate banking debt. Indeed, as part of this weekend’s events, campaigners will join the Ballyhea Says No campaign to march in their 141st week of protest against the illegitimate payments of over €64 billion in socialised banking debt. We join with the Ballyhea campaign in saying that these debts are not the debts of the people of Ireland.
On our 20th anniversary, Debt and Development Coalition calls for the non-payment of the nearly €30 billion in remaining Anglo bonds and for agreement on how the people of Ireland and elsewhere in Europe are to be compensated for the further billions already lost to our gambling banks.
But we don’t want compensation for Ireland at the cost of people in other countries, who have been living in debt crises for far longer than we have in Europe. Solutions must be based on international solidarity. This weekend campaigners will contextualize the Irish struggle for debt justice within the myriad and ongoing campaigns across all continents of the world. Our purpose is to highlight that we are not alone in this battle. And that unjustly indebted people, when united, are a powerful force.
Our involvement with the global debt cancellation movement has taught us this.
Through mass global protest over two decades, debt cancellation deals reached in 1996, 1999 and 2005 cancelled US$130 billion of World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank loans to Africa, Asia and Latin America. But these outcomes have also taught us the costs that can come with negotiated settlements with creditors. This is because the cancellations were provided on condition of disastrous economic policies such as privatization and liberalization of domestic markets and enforced clearance of debt arrears.
These lessons teach us that indebted governments, through calling for multi-lateral negotiations or by taking direct action, must always seek to challenge the dominant role of the creditor. And we, the people, must apply consistent pressure to ensure our governments act in our interests.
The global debt justice movement draws on many inspiring examples of this in action.
In Latin America there is the much mis-represented Argentine debt default which forced the majority of creditors to accept 25-30 cent in the dollar on their loans. In Charleville this weekend, Dr Alan Cibils, chair of the Political Economy Department at the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires will re-balance the debate about Argentina’s decision. His work highlights the unavoidable necessity for governments to tackle unsustainable debt levels and outlines the benefits that arise from treating non-payment of unsustainable or unjust debt as an effective policy option for governments in crisis.
While the Irish Government appears to believe that there are no policy options beyond full debt repayment, the small plucky Caribbean island state of Grenada is taking a different route. Last March, Grenada was unable to pay its debts to its international creditors. In a ground breaking development last month, the Minister for Economic Development in Grenada announced that they are calling a debtor-creditor conference in order to negotiate debt cancellation with their creditors.
Indeed, Grenada is mirroring the precedent of the massive debt write down achieved by Germany in 1953, through the London Debt Accord, which comprehensively relieved Germany of about 50% of its sovereign, commercial and personal debts.
Around the world, grassroots movements continue to call on their governments to act for justice. In 2012, in addition to mass protest, people in Portugal sang some of their national anthem “the people have the most power” wherever government ministers appeared. In El Salvador workers went on strike for nine months forcing their government to reverse a health privatization plan. In Greece, workers in Thessaloniki took control of their factory, abandoned by its owners. In Tunisia many hundreds of strikes have been held since 2011 under the banner ‘we don’t owe, we won’t pay’.
The events in Ballyhea and Charleville this weekend are a poignant moment for reflection on these global struggles. Instead of mourning the ongoing debt crises in the Global South and in Europe, this weekend we will focus on the international connectedness of people living with unjust debts. From Ballyhea to Buenos Aries and from Athens to Islamabad, people around the world are consistently opposing unjust sovereign debt payments.
We celebrate our successes and learn from campaign setbacks, but above all we take the long view – that unjust debts should not be paid and it is through consistent people’s resistance that this may be achieved.
Nessa Ní Chasaide is coordinator of Debt and Development Coalition Ireland. She tweets from @Debt_Ireland.
The full programme for the events in Ballyhea/Charleville on Sat 9th and Sun 10th November can be found here.
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Fair play to these people. It is about time the the Irish Nation discovered a sense of outrage.
If there is any capital holes that have to be filled in when the stress tests on the banks are completed next year by the ECB, they are demanding that the sovereign divvies up again, even though there is nothing left in the coffers! So much for breaking the loop between the banks and the sovereign. The EU obviously much prefers countries to become bankrupt more than the banks. If Ireland coughs up again if the banks need to be recapitalised again, there should be nothing short of a revolution because of it! If there isn’t, the people get the government they truly deserve! Ireland has already paid and shouldn’t have to pay again.
You have it there Declan.
Only the interests of the banks & top few percent elites – Capital owners – have been represented throughout the whole crisis. In any country. (Possible exception Iceland.)
This is not ‘democracy’.
Agreements in principle in June 2012 to collectivise & separate banks’ losses from individual nations have been completely reneged on.
But matters are even worse than most people realise.
Few people are aware that all the major currencies – all in Europe, incl. the Euro – are ‘fiat’. That is, created from thin air, linked to no ‘commodity’ & with free floating exchange rates.
There is absolutely nothing whatever stopping en masse debt repayment of large sums with fiat money created on keyboards at the respective central banks. And it can easily be done on a fair, per capita basis – no country getting an unfair advantage (at least not more or less than they already have).
Why do we need to do this?
The debt service burdens are crippling economic activity & are causing mass unemployment which will not be resolved for decades, if at all.
Our economies urgently need stimulus spending to restore jobs & the prosperity that comes only from making full use of of our available resources. That means (near) full employment needs to be the primary goal of public policy. We should instigate a minimum wage (transition, non-competing, community/charity sector) Job Guarantee – voluntary, no neoliberal Stalinism, thanks – for any and all who wish to avail of it.
Morally, most of these debts are not the responsibility of the majority of ordinary citizens. It is not just the primary amounts, like Ireland’s €64 billion (& still rising) used to directly cover banks’ losses, but the costs of the consequential economic damage caused by their reckless behaviour.
In Ireland’s case, It would be reasonable to add at least another €50 billion of consequent public debt to that €65 billion.
There is no ‘economics’ or ‘monetary’ reason why most of these debts could not be cancelled. None whatever.
Authorities, elected and unelected, mainstream economists and media, are choosing not to serve the interests of the majority for their own self serving reasons, or simple mass ignorance and incompetence.
Five years on and getting worse, not better. Enough is enough.
Most of these self styled authorities should be kicked out of office, so that we can restore democracy (did we ever really have it?), and use facilities our monetary systems already have for the welfare of citizens, not just the elites.
Which are more each to control. Those that are swayed by tabloid journalism or those that are led by limited liability psychopaths.
Very disappointed in FG/Lab they just carried on FF policy of financial appeasement, socialising poor investment losses by private capital.
Long story short we need to cancel our illegitimate soveirgn debt.Renationalise our natural energy and maritime resources and secede from the E.U to the E.E.A.I’ve said this a couple of times on this and i’ll just keep beating the drum.The irish need a new leader.The cohort in government are not up to the task.Also the immediate implementation of a direct democracy is of great concern to the Irish it is our country to take back.
That’s our problem John…we don’t have a leader either in power or waiting in the wings. As long as the political inbreds are running the show nothing will change. This country should have undergone a revolution three years ago but( and let’s be completely honest here) we’re a nation of sheep and as long as we’re willing to bend over as a people we’re going to get shafted.
The banks, politicians, media and vested interests have destroyed our country, our society and our hope. Be under absolutely no illusion whatsoever..we’re political and economical collateral to these groups. As long as politicians do not have any consequences attached to the shockingly poor decisions they feist on us they will continue to do so
The Irish propensity for obedience wrecks my head why can’t the irish just stand up for themselves.
Some where in Europe there is a leader that will lead a revolt against the submissive governments ,maybe he is emerging
Are any government politicians going to the conference? Hearing these speakers might open their minds to the other options available rather than the single path (mantra) they are currently following.
What minds? They are mere puppets who dance to the tune of their masters/bankers.
A novel idea, pull out of the EU and go it alone, the UK would probably follow suit eventually, but by then we’d be long gone.
I think you mean pull out of the Euro, not the EU?
Tho’ if the corporate elites get the regulatory race to the bottom they want, in this so called ‘trade’ agreement, ‘TTIP’ being negotiated in secret, between the EU and US/Canada, then it might well be in citizens’ interests everywhere to dump the EU.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy
As for the Euro, it could be made to work, but does need major reform. We should probably try, not least because it’s already in place, but because there are things we could do in the interim to make exit far easier if negotiations for reform fail. (See my post above.)
Greece, in its own interests, should have left the Euro long before now. With its own fiat currency, prosperity could have been easily restored. For the remainder of us, still suffering mass unemployment, the decision is borderline at present.
That gave me a good laugh if nothing else
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