The debt owed by poor countries to the IMF and World Bank is crippling, and very often comes at the expense of essential investments in people such as education, health care and environmental services. Some African countries, for example, spend an average of $US14 per person each year on servicing their debts, compared to only US$5 per person on health care.

Viewed from an angle, the average debt of every Indian has been estimated to soar to about Rs 30,000 in about a year with the government Competitive economies stepping up it borrowing programme in the next fiscal to fund public expenditure and stimulate the economy.

With the government adding about Rs 3,00,000 crores (Rs 3000 billion) to the public debt annually in the last few years, the total public debt is estimated to zoom to a whooping Rs 34,06,322 crores (Rs 34.06 trillion) by March 2010, nearly double the amount recorded seven years ago.

In order to fight the impact of the global financial meltdown on the Indian economy, the government substantially increased its market borrowing programme in 2008-09.

According to budget papers, as against the target of Rs 1, 00,000 crores (Rs 1 trillion), the government would end up raising Rs 2, 62,000 crores (Rs 2,620 billion) during 2008-09, more than two and a half times the original estimate.

We strongly feels that India should not go the Argentina way by borrowing heavily from the World Bank and by getting caught in a vicious circle of debt, more debt and debt servicing.

No country needs to go in for external funding. There will be enough for everyone within the country if there is distribution of wealth and judicious use of resources.

We appeal to all to say `no’ to external debt. It is immoral and fraudulent. People should resolve not to pay such debt. After all, it is not the people who sought such debt but the Government and politics. Why should they suffer for the decision taken without their consent?

We endorse our protest, and our movement asserts for the unconditional cancellation of all outstanding foreign debt owed by poor countries to rich ones, and to international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF. Many of these debts were accumulated by dictatorial and criminal regimes and should therefore be considered illegitimate.

Debt and those who participated in creating it need to be investigated and judged: the global cry for debt termination is also a call for righteousness. We demand 100 percent debt cancellation, and the removal of all economic conditions. This is essential in order to ensure that people in the South can regain control over economic decisions that affect their lives.

We would like to achieve through our campaign the recognition of the ecological debt owed by northern countries to countries in the South for decades of resource exploitation.

We would like to ascertain the RESPONSIBILITY and the OBLIGATION of the industrialized countries of the North to repair and to stop the damages caused to the biosphere and to the countries (as they say) Third World by the Ecological Debt, as it is putting the entire planet at risk.

We would like to MAKE EVIDENT the ILLEGITIMACY of the foreign debt as a means of looting that increases the ecological debt.

We would like to PROTECT our cultural and natural heritage and to strengthen their diversity, for both present and future generations.

We would like to STOP the external flow of primary materials, food and financial flows, as part of the ecologically unequal exchange, for a nationally focused and autonomous economy that prioritizes the national population’s needs in harmony with the environment.

We would like to MAKE obvious the inequalities of the present economic model, and to promote resistance to the imposition of a monoculture based on money and the market which works against cultural diversity, the well-being of communities and environmental sustainability.

We would like to PROTECT AND PROMOTE ecologically sustainable communities and the recognition and the importance of indigenous communities in the preservation of the agricultural and wild diversity.

We would like to seek international RECOGNITION for the Ecological, Historical and Current Debt that the countries of the North owe to the countries of the Third World.

We would like to seek international RECOGNITION of the ILLEGITIMACY OF THE FOREIGN DEBT as made evident by the ecological debt.

We demand the REPATRIATION of Cultural (plundered historical memory) and Natural Heritage (genetic and biological material.

We would like to reinstate the areas affected in the countries of the South, by the extraction of natural resources and export monocultures, so that local and national communities recover their self sustaining capacity.

We would like to shrink Carbon emissions and totally eliminate the products that generate the erosion of the ozone layer, curtail of all the weapons, products and toxic substances that threaten the life of the planet.

We would like to call on the people and the governments of the third world, to be vigorous in defense of life.

We would like to call on the people to DISOBEY all policies of the multilateral organizations, (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization), and of Governments, that threaten the ecological balance and human survival.

We disagree and say no to the programs and credits that promote the extraction of natural resources, monocultures and Megaprovectos, and to a cost of social and environmental destruction.

We disagree and say NO to the payment of the foreign debt.

We disagree and say NO to structural adjustment programs.

We disagree and say NO to Monopolies.

We disagree and say NO to the transnational corporation (TNCs).

We disagree and say NO to patents to the life.

We disagree and say NO to transgenic crops.

We disagree and VETO to the privatization of the earth, the water, energy and communication.

We disagree and REFUSE to the flow of energy, natural resources and money from the south to the north.

We disagree and REJECT to the policies of free trade.

We claim the SUPREME RIGHT to resistance in order to exercise all these Nos and disagreements, purging all the negatives in order to build the grandiose positive.

original paper