Cancel Congo's debt

Cancel Congo's debt

"My country, whose foreign debt amounts to $14 billion, calls upon the major donors to demonstrate greater solidarity and a more responsible and consistent approach to possible solutions", Congo's foreign minister, Bizima Karaha, told the UN General Assembly on October 1.

"In the specific case of the Congo, a country that has been devastated, we wonder what in fact was the point of these billions since the country is in a state of total ruin, without roads, bridges, hospitals or schools."

Karaha said that Congo's massive foreign debt should be cancelled "pure and simple" because the loans were diverted to the western-backed dictator Mobutu's secret bank account before they ever reached the former Zaire.

Karaha said it was "public knowledge that these funds never reached the Congo and that they were, for the most part, invested in American, European and Asian banks".

It was unjust that future international assistance was now dependent on payment of these loans, he added. The UN should help Congo find the $14 billion and return it to the people of that shattered country.

From GLW issue 293