The Association of Black Psychologists calls Africa’s debt: An Illegitimate, Odious, Immoral Fabrication

The News Journal of the Association of Black Psychologists, August/September 2005 issue got serious on Africa with an article by Randolph Potts, PhD. Dr. Potts’ article went straight to the heart of the matter when it comes to Africa’s debt by calling it an “illegitimate, odious, immoral fabrication”. In the article Potts lays it all out for the layperson to understand just how neo-colonialism has taken shape in Africa. He points out that most African countries have long ago paid the principle for their loans and other debts but are still obligated to pay several times the original debt in interest.

Here is a little of what he said:

Debt contracted by neo-colonial and other repressive regimes, incurred to strengthen these regimes and enrich their foreign benefactors is illegitimate and odious. Such an unjustified financial yoke only serves to sustain European influence over African governments and compromise the well being of African People.

Debt that cannot be repaid without grossly impairing a country’s ability to meet its health care needs, and devastating its prospects for economic growth, is illegitimate and immoral. As Mwalimu Julius Nyerere has cautioned, “Must we starve our children to pay our debts?”

Debts that have been imposed by creditor governments and banks, and continue to grow because of skyrocketing interest rates, are illegitimate and unjust. The original debt (the principle) has often already been repaid many times over, so the continued existence of a debt burden is illegitimate. For example, Nigeria originally borrowed $5 billion from foreign institutions. It has paid back $16 billion but still owes $32 billion on the same debt (Africa Action, 2004).

In essence Africa has been given a sharecropper deal by its colonial masters after declaring “independence” in much the same was enslaved Africans in America were given sharecropper deals after “emancipation” keeping the majority of former enslaved Africans in poverty for another hundred years[as the whole world saw in New Orleans]. Many of us are still in volunteer slavery because we have adopted a life of consumption and materialism. African countries are now saddle with a debt that could never be repaid especially when the lending institutions have such control over the variability of interest rates and more importantly currency exchange.

Dr. Potts goes on to say:
Having often witnessed the arbitrary and capricious raising and lowering and even elimination of interest rates by creditors, as well as the easing or elimination of large debts incurred by corporations, governments and individuals, we know that “debt” and degree of indebtedness are often subjective phenomena used in the interest of the creditor. Africa’s “debt” is an illegitimate, unjust, subjective fabrication, constructed to facilitate continued control over African people while providing the exploiting institutions and governments with a veneer of legitimacy.

Veneer is right. Underneath it all Africa’s creditors are just common loan sharks that could not get away with this kind of financial wickedness in their own countries. Potts uses the Congo and South Africa as examples of debt time bombs. He suggests that neo-colonial heads of states in the 1970’s like Mobutu and the apartheid regime of South Africa received aid and borrowed heavily just after independence, in the case of Congo (or Zaire) and in the last 15 years of the apartheid regime in the case of South Africa. South Africa used these finances to fund their regional wars, which forced its neighbors to incur billion in debt as well. Other countries with vast natural resources like Sierra Leone and Liberia borrowed heavily and mortgaged their resources and can now boast of being the poorest countries in the world. How could this be you might ask when the multi national corporations that control their resources have such vast wealth. Can you imagine countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia with gold, diamonds, platinum, rubber, fertile farm lands that could yield three crops a year would have starving and sick people everywhere and be ranked among the poorest countries of the world.

As millions continue to die from HIV/AIDS in Africa, most countries are spending more annually on debt repayment than they are on much needed healthcare for their citizens. They are also being force by lending institutions like the IMF and World Bank under programs like SAPA (Structural Adjustment and Poverty Alleviation) to continue to privatize infrastructure like water, power and communications to foreign nationals making those that already live in abject poverty have to pay of the essentials of life.

Potts brought out that in December of 2004, the United States cancelled 100 percent of Iraq’s $4.1 billion dollar debt. He pointed out that at the ceremony Colin Powell remarked that lifting the “crushing burden of the old regime’s debt is one of the most important contributions we can make to Iraq’s new beginning”. Hum, former Secretary of State, Powell never said anything like that about Africa’s debt. Or did he, if so it’s doesn’t come to mind? There is an interesting article on the net speculation that Powell would become the next head of the World Bank [http://www.sacobserver.com/news/commentary.shtml]. But we know that would never happen. As Dr. Potts brought out in his article African countries need to benefit from the lifting of crushing debt of previous regimes Powell spoke of. We will give Powell the benefit of the doubt. During his tenure as Secretary of State he did take interest in the genocide in Darfur, as well as the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS [the neo-cons had a field day on his for that]. However, Powell’s report card on Africa was at best a disappointing and a telling reminder of his “conservatism”. Singer, Civil Rights Activist and Pan-Africanist, Harry Belafonte feels otherwise about Powell and has on several public occasions spoken in the strongest terms about his disappointment with Powell’s performance on Africa.

The momentum to cancel all of Africa’s debt is gaining speed and many countries, organizations and individuals are moving for the complete and total cancellation of all of Africa’s debt now. It was a scam to saddle Africa with the yoke of slavery. We will continue to cover progress on this paramount issue for Africa’s true independence from its colonial and imperial masters until it is done. The way we did it in the United States until Jim Crow was done. The way we did it in South Africa until Apartheid was done. And then as the great Kwame Nkrumah once said we must never take money from them again. The cost clearly outweighs the benefit.