Chavez writes off Haiti's oil debt to Venezuela

2040

Why is there 5+ pages on this? Haiti won't be able to pay back its debts anyway. It's a meaningless gesture.

Joey the lips

2040 wrote: »

Why is there 5+ pages on this? Haiti won't be able to pay back its debts anyway. It's a meaningless gesture.

That has never stopped the world bank lending before.they usually end up trading something of value like mineral rights, fishing rights or the likes. There is a famous case with the US and Peru where peru traded mineral rights.

ei.sdraob

Joey the lips wrote: »

That has never stopped the world bank lending before.they usually end up trading something of value like mineral rights, fishing rights or the likes. There is a famous case with the US and Peru where peru traded mineral rights.

in the case of WB & Haiti you are wrong and you are either unaware of recent events or ignoring them, see below:



as has shown earlier in thread almost all of current remaining Haiti debt is owned by IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) (500m$)
whose main members being other Latin American and Carribean countries such as Venezuela, with Haiti for example still owing Venezuela few dozen million in debt (~30m$)




Haiti at the moment owes the World Bank 38m$ > http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/Story/A1Story20100123-194018.html

that remaining debt (1.2bn$ was already written of in summer to WB/IMF) to the World Bank is:
* interest free
* repayments have been frozen for 5 years
* the WB is looking to write this off altogether

the WB btw is also offering a 100m$ aid grant to Haiti as announced on Jan 13th > http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22440632~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html

/

Joey the lips

ei.sdraob wrote: »

in the case of WB & Haiti you are wrong and you are either unaware of recent events or ignoring them, see below:



/

I was not talking about the world bank and haiti in this instance however since you mentioned it I heard specifically on the news the other day that interest on all loans has only been suspended for 2 years. Has this since changed?

ei.sdraob

Joey the lips wrote: »

however since you mentioned it I heard specifically on the news the other day that interest on all loans has only been suspended for 2 years. Has this since changed?

you heard wrong


straight from the horses mouth

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22447706~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

Currently, Haiti's debt to the World Bank, which is interest-free, is about $38 million
—about 4% of Haiti’s total external debt.
Due to the crisis caused by the earthquake,
we are waiving any payments on this debt for the next five years
and at the same time
we are working to find a way forward to cancel the remaining debt.

Joey the lips

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0128/imf.html

Seems not. I especially like this bit.

The IMF said Haiti will not pay interest on its IMF loans until the end of 2011, part of a package of measures agreed last year to help poor countries cope with the impact of the global financial crisis.

article is dated last thursday.

ei.sdraob

Joey the lips wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0128/imf.html

Seems not. I especially like this bit.

The IMF said Haiti will not pay interest on its IMF loans until the end of 2011, part of a package of measures agreed last year to help poor countries cope with the impact of the global financial crisis.

article is dated last thursday.

now your tripping over yourself and mixing up your organisations

$IMF != $WB


IMF & WB have written of 1.2 billion this summer to Haiti between them


heres Haiti's debt breakdown (At time of quake):



* WB with 38m$ (as per previous post), WB seeking to write this off

* IMF with 169m$ (source)

* Other countries with 97m$
** out of this Italy have written of 57m$ (source)

* IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) with 500m$ (source)
out of the 500m$ owed via IDB

** 150m$ is owed to US (seeking to write this off as per references earlier in this thread)
** 30m$ is owed to Venezeula, this is not oil debt but development debt (that was written of), no sign of this being written off
** remainder of the 500m$ > 320m$ is owed to Haiti;s neighbors in Latin america and carribean via IDB




does that make things clear? all are referenced and can be verified by yourself by yourself or by googling around

heres chart of above, breaking down things



all values are in millions of $$$

ei.sdraob

the oil Haiti received was part of the Petrocaribe deal

very interesting read on that here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocaribe

specifically the "Criticism" section in context of this post and this graph

Joey the lips

ei.sdraob wrote: »

the oil Haiti received was part of the Petrocaribe deal

very interesting read on that here > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocaribe

specifically the "Criticism" section in context of this post and this graph

I never mentioned the world bank till post 63 and that was a response to another post and i always refered to the IMF all along. I fail to see your point.

I also fail to see where your going.

ei.sdraob

Joey the lips wrote: »

I never mentioned the world bank till post 63 and that was a response to another post and i always refered to the IMF all along. I fail to see your point.

I also fail to see where your going.

this is what you posted

Joey the lips wrote: »

That has never stopped the world bank lending before.they usually end up trading something of value like mineral rights, fishing rights or the likes. There is a famous case with the US and Peru where peru traded mineral rights.

The Petrocaribe deal involved Haiti partially paying for the oil via agricultural exports, and that they did for last 4 years, the remainder of the deal was in $$ and that written of as per this thread

Cuba (biggest recipient of Petrocaribe oil) has to trade experienced doctors for example


to sum it up this oil deal is of the same kind as WB loans, its not a complete "charity" deal and closely resembles WB deals

Joey the lips wrote: »

they usually end up trading something of value like mineral rights, fishing rights or the likes.

Haiti had to send a certain amount of produce in exchange for the oil


once again read the Criticism sections on Petrocaribe deal

basically what im saying theres alot more to this story than people realise

Joey the lips

Lots more to what story?????? That chevez canceled payment on oil? As for there being lots more to stories your talking to someone who preaches that so I generally dont look at one side.

ei.sdraob

Joey the lips wrote: »

Lots more to what story?????? That chevez canceled payment on oil? As for there being lots more to stories your talking to someone who preaches that so I generally dont look at one side.

let me spell it out for you so

you wrote about how WB expect something (resources) in return for the loans, and made and example of Peru

here

Joey the lips wrote: »

That has never stopped the world bank lending before.they usually end up trading something of value like mineral rights, fishing rights or the likes. There is a famous case with the US and Peru where peru traded mineral rights.

as I have pointed out

the Petrocaribe deal between Venezuela and Haiti since 2005 wasn't exactly charity on behalf of Chavez

Haiti settled part of the deal before the earthquake by sending agricultural products (resources) in return for oil, the remainder of this deal was written off by Venezuela since obviously enough the country is not capable of paying anything back now

funny how theres a large similarity between how Chavez's petro company operates and how the WB/IMF operate

bonkey

Things seem to be on the verge of getting out of hand in this thread.

That would be a shame. Lets all take a deep breath and continue calmly.

meditraitor

I would like to add a big +1 to the Vensuelan gesture, nearly $300m written of with no strings...... Imagine that!

This thread has thrown up some good questions and because the Venesuelan debt cancellation does what it says on the tin I will leave that aside.
The supposed US debt cancellation has been highlighted (I can here the groans from a couple of our poster already) and I think this needs to be discussed as does the French for that matter.

A little history lesson first
http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2010/01/13/us-debt-policies-left-haiti-vulnerable-to-catastrophe/

Haiti was the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery (though Napoleon later reinstated it.) Meanwhile, the western world scorned the tiny island. Thomas Jefferson, that famous slave owner and champion of liberty, warned Haiti had created a bad example during its revolution, and argued it was necessary to “confine the plague to the island.”

Haiti was not born poor, but rather saddled with debt, first by the French and now by the United States. When the slaves fought for their independence in 1804, and won, the French punished them by demanding payment for damages (the equivalent of $21.7 billion in today’s dollars, or forty-four times Haiti’s current yearly budget, according to journalist Eduardo Galeano). Even as they began to pay that debt, France was the only country to recognize the newly independent Haiti, the country that transformed from a slave colony to an invisible, autonomous society. Yet, Haiti was never really free. No indebted country is ever free as debt takes the place of shackles.

The United States began its occupation of Haiti in 1915 when Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince. The reason for the invasion, according to the Secretary of the Navy, Admiral William Deville Bundy, was to “protect American and foreign” interests. Of course, the public was told the purpose of the mission was to “re-establish peace and order.” Sound familiar? Galeano writes:

The occupying army suspended the salary of the Haitian president until he agreed to sign off on the liquidation of the Bank of the Nation, which became a branch of City Bank of New York. The president and other blacks were barred entry into the private hotels, restaurants, and clubs of the foreign occupying power. The occupiers didn’t dare reestablish slavery, but they did impose forced labor for the building of public works. And they killed a lot of people. It wasn’t easy to quell the fires of resistance.

The guerrilla chief, Charlemagne Peralte, was exhibited in the public square, crucified on a door to teach the people a lesson.

And those were the acts of Marines, the civilized people.

When the occupiers left in 1934, they left behind a National Guard that they had created, and the ruler François Duvalier, who Galeano compared to such tyrants as Trujillo and Somoza. Duvalier was responsible for the deaths of around 30,000 people and the exile of thousands more. In 1971, Duvalier died and his son became ruler. In 1986, the son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, was overthrown in a popular uprising.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the rebel priest, and enemy of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, became president in 1991. He only lasted a few months before

the U.S. government helped to oust him, brought him to the United States, subjected him to Washington’s treatment, and then sent him back a few years later, in the arms of Marines, to resume his post. Then once again, in 2004, the U.S. helped to remove him from power, and yet again there was killing. And yet again the Marines came back, as they always seem to, like the flu.

Worse than the destruction of ongoing occupation, however, was the “help” Haiti received from The World Bank (the pet project of the United States,) and IMF. Haiti obeyed all orders from its financial overlords. It slashed tariffs and subsidies, and other protectionist policies, and yet its credit was frozen. The majority, rice farmers, became beggars. Now, Haiti imports rice from the United States since national production has practically been outlawed.

Back in 2003, Marie Clarke, National Coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network, wrote

Creditors are denying Haiti new loans and desperately needed humanitarian aid. They claim that this is because the current government cannot service its debt. Because debt payments must be made in the form of foreign capital and Haiti has only two weeks’ reserve in their central bank, it cannot service its debt. Jubilee USA and Jubilee Haiti argue that the debt is illegitimate and should not be serviced at all. Forty percent of Haiti’s current debt was accrued by the dictator Duvalier. According to international law, this debt is odious as it was a debt incurred in the name of the people but has not served the interest of the people. The people of Haiti have been handed a bill for their oppression.

Because Haitians were saddled with the debt of a dictator installed by the west, they are kept in perpetual poverty.

The dangers of this forced poverty policy were extremely clear. Clarke wrote in 2004:

Haiti’s loans from the 1994 reconstruction aid package will come due this year, doubling the country’s debt service payments. Before entering into new loan agreements, the best way that the donor community can start to assist in Haiti’s development is to release desperately needed resources by canceling Haiti’s odious debts. The pending loans are odious debt in the making. There are no guarantees that these funds will benefit the Haitian people. Creditors should heed the example of Iraq; they can not expect the Haitian people to repay these loans in the future.

And in 2009, $1.2 billion (2/3 of Haiti’s overall debt) was cancelled, which some saw as cause for celebration, but others realized the debt cancellation could only partly begin to right the wrongs of the past. Now that a large portion of the debt was gone, how could Haiti hope to begin to rebuild its economy and infrastructure? Instead of focusing on national production, the Haiti government seems determined to focus on the export sector. Haiti, like the west, is being told the cure to all her woes is the free market:

[A] few months ago UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and British economist Paul Collier made yet another proposal for international aid to fund garment assembly production in new Free Trade Zones.

Indeed, Corinne Delechat, IMF mission chief for Haiti, commenting on the debt cancellation, told Reuters that Haiti is a ‘land of opportunity if you’re an entrepreneur and an investor,” adding, “It is a golden moment for Haiti to start investing in export capacity, particularly in textiles.”

So therein lies the answer to why Haiti is so poor, and why so many citizens laid huddled in those paper shacks that immediately collapsed during the quake.

.

Haiti's largest creditor is the Inter-American Development Bank, lets look at these boys..... an example of their humanitarion attitiude
http://www.pih.org/inforesources/news/IDB_Haiti_report.html

Report indicts U.S. government and Inter-American Development Bank for violations of the rights to clean water and health in Haiti

By Tom Spoth
In 1998, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) awarded $54 million in loans to the Haitian government to improve the country’s patchwork, crumbling public-water system. The money was intended to bring clean water to people who for many years had been denied this basic human right, with devastating consequences for public health. Ten years later, however, this desperately needed money has not produced a single improvement to Haiti’s water supply in the city designated to be one of the first recipients.


A water source in need of an intervention in Haiti.


A new report from Partners In Health and three other groups reveals the United States government’s clandestine efforts to ensure that political considerations (namely the desire to destabilize Haiti’s elected government at that time, led by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide) took precedence over the rights of some of the planet’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

In the 10 years since the loans were approved, the Haitian water system has actually gotten worse. In 2002, a water-poverty index released by the British-based Centre for Ecology and Hydrology ranked Haiti dead last out of 147 countries surveyed.

On June 23, Partners In Health – along with its Haitian sister organization Zanmi Lasante, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center – released the 87-page report “Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti” in New York City.

“We have to stand up for what's right,” Loune Viaud, director of operations at Zanmi Lasante, said at the press conference. “What is right is for the IDB and the international community to stop playing with the lives of innocent people.”

Viaud and the rest of the investigative team worked for six years to bring the story of the IDB loans to light. During that time, Haiti’s water system continued to deteriorate. The report states that:

Public water systems are rarely available throughout the year and close to 70 percent of the population lacks direct access to potable water at all times
The percentage of the population without access to safe drinking water has increased by at least seven percent from 1990 to 2005
Infectious diarrhea was the second leading cause of death in Haiti in 1999, and gastrointestinal infection was the leading cause of mortality for young children. These preventable diseases result primarily from unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation.
The failure to address Haiti’s crippling public-health problems is the latest in a long line of oppressive policies toward the country. Haiti, the only nation to be born from a successful slave revolution, has been hamstrung by crushing foreign debt for virtually its entire existence. It took Haiti more than 100 years to pay off a debt of 150 million francs (equivalent to $21 billion today) imposed by France in 1825 to “compensate” for the value of lost property, including the former slaves themselves. More recently, impoverished Haiti has been forced to pay $1 million a week toward settling a $1.54 billion debt piled up mainly by the dictatorial Duvalier regime, which did nothing to improve the lives of average Haitians.

Massive debt has precluded spending on desperately needed infrastructure projects. In 2003, for example, Haiti’s debt service was $57.4 million; the Haitian government’s combined budget for education, health care, environment, and transportation was $39.21 million. Meanwhile, the Haitian people continued to endure crushing poverty, which has been exacerbated by the failure to disburse the IDB loans. The report contains a telling comparison: In order to purchase the World Health Organization’s minimum standard of 20 liters of water per day, a Haitian family of four would have to spend approximately 12 percent of its annual income – the equivalent of asking a U.S. family living at the poverty level ($20,444 per year) to pay nearly $2,500 per year for water.

In Port-de-Paix, the Haitian city that was supposed to be one of the first beneficiaries of IDB loans, the private sector provides 80 percent of drinking water, and 86.7 percent of residents surveyed reported that they are “always” or “sometimes” unable to pay for water. Eighty percent indicated that water quantity had either declined or stayed the same in the five years before the survey was conducted, and 88.9 percent said water quality had gotten worse or not improved.

A household survey conducted by PIH documented the devastating impact on public health. Fifteen percent of the surveyed households reported probable recent cases of typhoid. One-third of respondents suffered from symptoms of gastrointestinal infection, the leading cause of death for Haitian children under the age of five.

“I’ve been working in Haiti for more than a decade,” commented Evan Lyon of PIH, “so I have long been aware of the connection between lack of access to clean water and preventable disease. But surveying households in Port-de-Paix opened my eyes to how essential clean water is to all facets of life, from cooking and washing, to growing food and the ability of children to attend school. At one household, we perched on rickety chairs in front of the house, ankle-deep in water, and the family was literally bailing filthy water out of their yard while I asked them questions. When we tested water at the local hospital we discovered it was just as contaminated as the water that makes people sick in the first place. The hospital's water comes from the same dirty sources.”

Although initial bids have been taken for the Port-de-Paix project, as of May 2008, no ground had been broken. Several attempts to obtain updates from the IDB’s Public Information Center were unsuccessful. (In an article about the report, The Miami Herald quoted an IDB spokesman as saying that in Port-de-Paix, funds are being disbursed to contractors and work should be completed by 2009.)

By failing to distribute loans and grants to Haiti, the IDB violated its own charter, which strictly prohibits the bank from letting politics influence its decisions. Internal documents from the U.S. Treasury Department and the office of the U.S. Executive Director at the IDB, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, show that officials actively used American influence to block the loans in an attempt to destabilize the government led by President Aristide, who was ultimately overthrown in 2004.

International law also protects the human right to water, according to the United Nations’ Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as other international covenants and declarations. If one accepts the notion of water as a fundamental right, then the U.S. government’s actions can be construed as a direct violation of its international human-rights obligations.

“I bet most of the people in this city do not think about this as a right,” Viaud said. “It is taken for granted every day. Just imagine one day without water, here in New York City. It would be a disaster -- in the news around the world. It would be outrageous.”

The report’s authors recommend a “rights-based” approach to water projects in Haiti going forward: All initiatives should focus on accountability and sustainability, and should involve Haitians living in the communities where projects will be implemented in the process.

“Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti” will be launched in Port-de-Paix at a later date. French and Kreyol versions will be available soon.

The current government of the US is doing a great job and has reacted with integrity and humanity to the disaster but it doesnt clear their debt to Haiti!

The argument that Vensuela was only clearing the debt so they wouldnt look bad in the international community is as rediculous an argument as Ive heard and the assertion that the US(or the french for that matter) have somehow been the white knight in this tragedy could only be born of ignorance because it is as far from the truth as you can go.

BluePlanet

Regarding this proposal of US canceling Haiti's debt, can anybody find this supposed Bill?
I've found this so far:

Two senior U.S. senators on Thursday introduced legislation that seeks to write off Haiti's foreign debt, increase trade and create an infrastructure fund to help the quake-hit country rebuild quicker.

Chris Dodd, a Democrat who is chairman of the Senate banking committee, and Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, said the legislation explores ways to boost economic activity by adjusting U.S.-Haiti trade agreements.
Lugar said he hoped the legislation would also encourage the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral institutions to write off Haiti's existing debts and any additional debt built up in the aftermath of the earthquake

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2823835420100129


Getting into specifics i find this (story from Jan. 14)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avelino-maestas/haiti-and-debt-cancellati_b_423930.html

H.R.4405, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2009.

2009?
Yep, this bill was introduced back on 12/16/09.

Then there's this one:
H.R.2634 - Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of 2008.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h2634/show

Which passed a couple of hurdles.

I suppose there may be differences between 2009 vs 2008 bills.
But wtf?
Sounds like Mr. Chris Dodd and his buddy are going to submit an entirely new Bill?
Talk about the slow cogs in the political machinery.
Is there really any hope that the US will cancel Haiti's debt?

Mal-Adjusted

fair play to him for doing it, but I don't really see how they could have paid it off, even without the earthquake