What needs to be uncovered?

It is time to lift the lid on unjust debt - and expose how the poor have been paying for corporate profits, for corruption, and for oppression.

After serious campaigner pressure, the rich world has cancelled substantial amounts of debt - but only for a few countries, after they put into place the economic policies that the rich world has demanded. Plenty more unjust debts are left. And the poor are paying.

Making the poor pay for corporate profits
Many loans financed useless or overpriced projects. Private banks or rich governments, eager to encourage exports by their own companies, gave loans or credits without ensuring that the project was useful or affordable. The Philippines, for instance, will pay over $45,000 every day in 2007, the final instalment of billions paid over decades for a US-built, unsafe power plant that has never produced any power and never will.

Making the poor pay for corruption
Many poor country debts came from loans which banks and governments knew they were giving to corrupt regimes that were likely to steal the money. Lenders gave billions to Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, for example, even when their own staff told them he would steal the money, because they saw him as an ally in the Cold War. When those corrupt leaders are long gone, the lenders demand that the next government repay the 'debt' with interest. This leaves far less money available for the needs of the people of the country, who already suffered by having a corrupt regime propped up by foreign money in the first place.

Making the poor pay for oppression
Rich country loans and credits have often gone to help oppressive regimes buy weapons which they have used against their own people. Indonesia, for example, owes the UK over £300 million for weapons sold to the brutally violent regime of President Suharto who was known to use such weapons to oppress his people. Now the current Indonesian government is told it must pay his 'debt'. Indonesia spends more on repaying debts than on health or education.

Making the poor pay many times over
Some loans were simply given on unfair or unbearable terms. Money might have been lent to a democratic government, and for a useful project. But if the terms of that loan mean that it becomes horrendously expensive for the country to repay, then it is still an unjust and illegitimate debt.

>> TAKE ACTION 1 - Ask the UK government to Lift the Lid
>> TAKE ACTION 2 - Ask your MP to help uncover bad loans