Could Debt Relief Programs Be Fairer?

We should congratulate ourselves for pushing Congress to fund even partial debt relief for impoverished countries (“The Rock Star, the Pope and the World’s Poor,” Jan. 7), but there are still unfair strings attached. Eligible countries must still follow International Monetary Fund and World Bank “structural adjustment” programs for three or more years. Since the 1980s, these programs have mandated layoffs and wage freezes, price hikes for basic needs, privatizations at fire-sale prices and an export economy that earns little on the foreign market, instead of producing an economy that meets local needs. The rich (including U.S. multinational corporations) have gotten richer and the poor poorer under these policies.

Unfortunately, this is the same deregulation/big-business agenda that the U.S. is forcing on poor countries through the World Trade Organization and proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. The WTO prohibits poor country governments from using key economic development tools (such as local purchasing, balancing imports with exports to avoid a trade deficit, protection for infant domestic industries and markets) to gradually join the global economy. Hypocritically, these are some of the very tools that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even the U.S. used to get ahead.

Unless we change these policies as well, we can’t expect much long-term benefit from debt relief.

DAN RODMAN

Madison, Wis.

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I read the article on debt relief and was outraged to discover that Haiti was excluded. The justification for debt relief in the article is the interest in “easing the financial burden on poor countries” for the “neediest nations struggling with rising payments, often loans made to corrupt regimes.” By any measure, Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Seventy percent of Haiti’s 7.5 million predominantly African-origin residents are unemployed; 48% of the population is illiterate; more than 97% of its children live in abject poverty.

By refusing to acknowledge the role that the crushing debt is having on Haiti, America has not only abdicated its responsibility for causing the debt, but again demonstrated that the war against Africa and its descendants abroad is still being waged. It’s time the United States “forgave” Haiti for committing the “crime” of defending itself against whites who wish to enslave and oppress its people.

KAREN M. CHAPMAN

Anaheim