The Hindu : 'Say no to external debt'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 05, 2003

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National

'Say no to external debt'

By K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD Jan. 4. Nora de Cortinas of Argentina, who co-founded ``Mothers of the May Plaza'' to protest the disappearance of their children under the military dictatorship of the 1970s, 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''.

``It bleeds the country to death like it happened in Argentina. 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,'' Ms. Cortinas told The Hindu in an interview on Saturday.

``After the bitter experience in Argentina, I 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?''

Ms. Cortinas, who was in Hyderabad to attend the Asian Social Forum, was in the forefront of a struggle by Argentine women against the repressive military regime. A widow with two sons, one of whom, Carlos Gustavo Cortinas, a student of economics at the Univeristy of Buenos Aires, was jailed in 1977. A member of the political movement, Juventud Peronista (Young Peronists), he was among the 30,000 youth who ``disappeared''. Horrified by such ``disappearances'' engineered by the regime, mothers of these hapless youth launched the Las Madras de la Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of May Plaza), a highly-successful movement. They continue to pray at the May Plaza every Thursday.

Expanding on the theme that no country needed any external debt, Ms. Cortinas said Argentina produced foodgrains enough to feed 300 million people as against a population of 37 million. Yet with most of it going into exports, a trade controlled by big business houses, 20 million people suffered from poverty, hunger and unemployment. The earnings from exports, which could obviate the necessity for taking loans, continued to be a mystery and nobody knew where they were going.

Did the situation change after the military regime? ``Not much. The IMF and the World Bank had no qualms in giving loans to a military regime. The debt legacy continued and is pursued vigorously by the constitutional Governments too. Logically, they should have rejected it. But they did not. All those responsible for unleashing a reign of terror and repression were let off the hook. Nor were those responsible for pushing the country into a debt trap brought to book. Far from it, political parties which came to power subsequently, who otherwise differed, came to a broad understanding on taking debts in the name of reforms and the neo-liberal policies.''

How were these loans spent? Were they productive ? What kind of permanent assets were created? She was at a loss. ``But for some small project here and there, there was nothing which could do public good. With no transparency and no accountability, no one knows where these loans have gone. But everyone is sure of one thing, it has lined the pockets of the politicians''.

Ms. Cortinas said there was some hope with the famous 19-20 December 2001 events, when the otherwise silent middle classes came on to the roads and besieged the banks, pinched by the way they were not allowed to withdraw money. From indifference, they are now more socially and politically conscious. But they have lost faith in the political system.

Two new challenges were from the corporates which were taking away a huge extent of land for farming and the attempts made to include Argentina into a free trade zone. ``It is nothing but recolonisation,'' she said.

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