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Abstract

There can not be any doubt in the minds of economists, sociologists, political scientists or the general public that external debt has become a burden for poor nations rather than the much-advertised source of financial help to these countries. In the words of the late Cardinal Hume, Archbishop of Westminster, “Whatever the detailed history of today’s debt ridden countries, nearly all have one key fact in common: that those who could be blamed the least, the poorest people in the poorest countries, have suffered the most”. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said, “The debt of poor countries is a great moral issue of our day and this decade. It is the greatest single cause of poverty and injustice across the earth and potentially one of the greatest threats to peace”. He added, “We must cut the debt and do so now”. In the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, “Nothing is more important than the debt question. It is absolutely necessary to resolve the problem as soon as possible. We cannot keep waiting”. The great African leader Julius Nyerere said, “Is it right that we starve in order to pay our debts?”