Jubilee South/Americas global call in the face of the Coronavirus Pandemia
Global Call:
Immediate Suspension of Debt Payments and External Debt Cancellation! Allocate these Funds to the Attention and Care of the Population!
To face the health and food crisis compounded by coronavirus
For over twenty years, Jubilee South/Americas has been demanding the cancellation of our countries’ respective external debts. We have clearly demonstrated its illegitimacy through actions and arguments, showing how the very mechanisms of the debt are contrived to ensure that it will never be paid off, thus guaranteeing the subjugation of our peoples to financial slavery and political dependency at the hands of big imperial capital.
It isn´t the peoples’ debt, which is why we affirm “We don´t owe, we won´t pay!”
As peoples of the global South, we were not consulted about acquiring these debts. On the contrary, they are external factors that threaten our sovereignties; an example of which is the role that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have played in imposing so-called “adjustments”, among them severe budget cuts in the health and education sectors forced upon our countries; cuts which rely on the complicity of corporate capital and the State.
The devastating impact caused by the obligation to service the debt falls on ourselves, on nature and all spaces that shelter life, such as water, air, forests and land. The debt condemns us to face extreme hardships such as hunger, thirst, illness, unemployment, eviction, the further exploitationof women, job precariousness aslavery, as well as migration, violence and wars.
They generate more and more debt for our peoples to pay
We are living in a context of great adversity that challenges us as people and as organizations. Given the coronavirus and its implications in the existing social, health, food and environmental crisis, we are experiencing one of the most complex moments in terms of global impact in recent decades. It is necessary to reaffirm that the damage caused by this disaster capitalism is based on a model that guarantees the concentration of corporate and financial power, as well as payment of the debt. These damages are sustained and imposed at the expense of human rights and nature.
They want to save capitalism by using coronavirus as an excuse
We denounce that the impact of this coronavirus intensifies patriarchal, sexist and racist violence, as well as a food crisis, labor exploitation, religious fundamentalism, the criminalization of the defenders of peoples´ and nature rights, hatred against marginalized and impoverished peoples, as well as migrant populations whose already precarious conditions will be compoundedby the ravages of this pandemic.
We affirm that the false solutions that are being implemented to deal with this virus are based on the control of liberties, beyond the need to contain contagion. We run the risk of a real “state of siege” being imposed, as these measures are being used to deepen and justify repressive States, police and military control. The pandemic is also being used to justify further indebtedness. Together these measures are designed to save capital interests, not people.
It is necessary to reverse the policies of external indebtedness that function as mechanisms for transferring wealth to the market, to transnational corporations, to countries central to the capitalist system, all to the detriment of the common good.It is urgent that the needs of the increasingly dependent, impoverished and indebted population be addressed.
We the people have alternatives to conserve and reproduce life
Today, more than ever, we affirm that it is we the people who are the true creditors. This current crisis is part and parcel of the larger global crisis of capitalism and the decadent civilizational paradigm that the elites are trying to preserve through any means possible. Thus, we believe that it is only through our own initiative that we can confront it.
Through alternative approaches, the defense and self-management of territories and the means of production, and collaborative ways of life among peoples and communities, a counterweight is created to sustain a popular offensive. This includes the reaffirmation of anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal and anti-productivist values, and innovation in methods, forms of organization and political action in alliance with progressive and leftist sectors and the governments of countries willing to confront current reality.
Given the precariousness and deficits of our infrastructure and basic services for health, education, food, sanitation, housing and general care which the populations of our countries already face, in view of the current pandemic it is even more necessary and urgent to redirect the resources that are now destined to servicing the debt to overcoming these deficits and precariousness that deepen poverty and marginalization. On this basis, we propose the following:
1- That the governments of our countries immediately suspend all payment of external debts and cancel illegitimate claims.
2- That the governments and financial institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and others, investment funds and bondholders who make debt claims against our States immediately suspend the collection of interest, amortizations and commissions, and instead of granting new loans with the purported objective of helping our countries to deal with the emergency, cancel their illegitimate and usurious payment demands.
3- That these resources be redirected to:
a) Increase government budgets and guarantee our human rights, to restructure the health and education systems, offer free care to families and communities, as well as guaranteeing access to food, water, sanitation, public hygiene and housing.
b) Guarantee protection of those sectors made most vulnerable: indigenous peoples, peasants, fisherfolk, African-American communities, migrant population, as well as homeless people, adults and the elderly, girls, boys, adolescents, women, workers in the “informal” sector, artisans, sexual diversity, sex workers, chain food workers and domestic workers.
4- The comprehensive reparation of ecosystems affected by extractive activities, agribusiness and large-scale infrastructure projects, in order to save peoples' lives and protect nature rights.
5- That governments not take advantage of curfews to invade and otherwise overtake people in resistance against mining, agribusiness and dams.
6. The defeat of all mechanisms and instruments, such as banks, that generate debt; it's time to speak out in a single voice NO to debt payments!
7. That peoples and social movements continue to mobilize against the debt and all types of exploitation and the restrictions on our individual and collective liberties and human rights.
Life before debt!
We the people are the creditors!
We don´t owe, we won't pay!
- Latin America and the Caribbean - March 25, 2020