Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

In 1914, when the revolution led by Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa was at its height, Mexico suspended all payment of its foreign debt. Although it owed its northern neighbour more than any other country of the Americas, it repaid only symbolic amounts between 1914 and 1942. There were protracted negotiations over 20 years (1922-1942) with a consortium of creditors led by a director of the US Morgan Bank. Meanwhile in 1938 President Lazaro Cárdenas nationalised the US-owned oil industry without compensation.

While the Mexican population benefited, the creditors obviously objected. But Mexico’s tenacity paid off : in 1942 the country’s creditors cancelled over 90% of the debt and agreed to modest compensation for the companies they had lost [1]. Other countries, among them Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador, also suspended, or partly suspended, payments after 1931. Brazil’s selective repayment freeze lasted until 1943, when a 30% debt reduction was agreed. Ecuador interrupted payments from 1931 until the 1950s.

During the 1930s 14 countries suspended payments long term. Of the large debtors, only Argentina kept up its payments, as it had done during a previous crisis at the end of the 19^th century. As a result, in the 1930s its economy was in far worse shape than Mexico’s or Brazil’s.

Argentina’s decision to suspend debt payments last December after the popular uprisings brought down President de la Rúa did not set a precedent. Since most Latin American countries gained independence at the start of the 19^th century, four major debt crises have resulted in dozens of suspensions.

During the first crisis, between 1826 and 1850, nearly all the Latin American countries ceased payments. Eleven of them then did the same in 1876. Fourteen countries ordered a moratorium in the 1930s [2]. Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina discontinued repayments for several months at one time or another between 1982 and 2002. This enabled them to create conditions favourable to a subsequent resumption of payments after renegotiating with their creditors.

On 26 November last year, Anne Krueger, appointed by the Bush administration as number two at the International Monetary Fund IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org , announced that the IMF was planning a procedure that would allow countries in difficulty to suspend payments for an extended period [3]. That might in some cases make the debt burden bearable and avoid a crisis breaking by forcing private creditors to abandon some of their claims.

The IMF wants to discipline private creditors to avoid a repetition of the crises that hit Mexico in 1994, Southeast Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998 and, most recently, Turkey and Argentina. But Krueger said it would take two or three years of talks in the IMF to put such a procedure in place. The major crisis in Argentina therefore took it unawares.

Clearly both the IMF and creditors in general are only talking about a respite [4]. They have profited well from the situation since August 1982 when repayment of the Mexican debt was provisionally suspended. None of the breaks have lasted more than a year and none were ever coordinated between several countries. As a result, private creditors have reaped dividends and the money lent to debtors to enable them to honour their international commitments, and to continue or resume repayments, has been repaid to the IMF every time with interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. .

Argentina’s current public external debt amounts to more than $130bn. But during the 25 years since the military dictatorship came to power in March 1976 it repaid more than $200bn. Under the “leaden years” of the 1976-1983 reign of terror, its external debt increased 5.5 fold from $8bn to $45bn. The IMF backed and advised the generals, even seconding a senior official, Dante Simone, to the Argentine central bank Central Bank The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.

ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx . In the final period of the dictatorship, the overwhelming majority of the private external debt was transferred illegally to the state.

Under international law such debts incurred by a dictatorial regime are “odious debts”. When democracy was restored in 1985, President Raúl Alfonsin would have been justified in refusing to bow to pressure from the IMF and other creditors. Instead, he began constitutional rule by signing an agreement with the IMF to repay every last cent the country owed. Most of the debts subsequently contracted were used to pay back the older ones.

On 13 July 2000, after 18 years of deliberations, the Federal Court in Buenos Aires handed down a 195-page judgment demonstrating the illegal nature of the debt and the culpability of the international private creditors, the IMF and the US Federal Reserve FED
Federal Reserve Officially, Federal Reserve System, is the United States’ central bank created in 1913 by the ’Federal Reserve Act’, also called the ’Owen-Glass Act’, after a series of banking crises, particularly the ’Bank Panic’ of 1907.

FED – decentralized central bank : http://www.federalreserve.gov/  [5]. It showed the rapacity of Argentine capitalists systematically exporting their capital after draining the national economy of its substance and destroying its industries. The people are therefore perfectly entitled to call on President Eduardo Duhalde to keep the debt suspended and seek its cancellation.

A regime that consistently made satisfying its citizens’ basic human rights a priority and took specific measures towards doing so would enjoy wide popular support in Argentina and elsewhere. Brazil, with its $250bn debt, will hold presidential elections in October. The new president could make common cause with Argentina against their creditors. And why not join forces with Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela ? That could prove a historic turning point for Latin America.