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Down to earth down under

The seventh of our series of articles in which Hester Ross follows the progress of the Queen's Jubilee Baton through the Commonwealth and focuses on debt related issues encountered along the way. This week the baton leaves Africa and arrives in Australia.

The baton's arrival 'down under' gives us an opportunity to examine some debt issues literally from the other side: from the position of a creditor nation.

Four HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Bangladesh, Nepal, The Philippines and Vietnam) owe a$ 306 million (Australian dollars) to Australia. Even the flawed debt relief process acknowledges that payment of these countries' debts could only be made by using money which is needed to save lives. That sounds like a lot of money but one Australian debt campaigner puts things into proportion by pointing out that this is less than the cost of one cup of cappuccino per citizen per year.

A fully priced cappuccino per person would cover the cost of writing off the debts of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, The Solomon Islands and Sri Lanka. Of these the largest debt, a$ 1.6 billion, is owed by Indonesia, much of which was run up during the now discredited 'New Order' regime of ex-president Soeharto.

At the time the World Bank chose to co-operate with Soeharto's regime, turning a blind eye to its corruption and excesses, as it accumulated this debt. Then later the IMF compounded the problem: following the Asian economic crisis it presided over a massive conversion of private debt into public debt. The result: Indonesia now uses 36% of government revenue to service its debt. Compare this with 8% on education and 4% on health. No wonder UNICEF predicts a 'lost generation' of Indonesians lacking education and proper health care.

The irony here is that Australia herself, like other creditor nations, has influence in both the World Bank and the IMF and must share the blame for Indonesia's debt crisis. Needless to say, this does not stop Australia and fellow rich countries from profiting from the economic mess they helped create.

Jubilee Australia campaigners are good at translating the debt issues into reality. At last month's Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Brisbane, debt campaigners held a memorial service for the 19,000 children who die each day as a result of the debt crisis. The act of naming endless lists of individual children helped bring home the true nature of the human tragedy.

What price a cappuccino or two?

Visit www.jubileescotland.org.uk for more on Scotland's debt campaign or e-mail mail@jubileescotland.org.uk )
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