Haiti's tourism dreams deferred by riots
By
Tricia N. Henry
Caribbean Net News 
LONDON,
England: The Finance Ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations
will be meeting in Japan on June 13 - 14 to primarily to discuss runaway oil prices,
but a group of international NGOs has called on the ministers to place the plight
of the island of Haiti high on their agenda.
In an open letter to
the G8 ministers, dated two days before the start of the summit, the various civil
society organisations from the G8 Group of Nations and other European organisations
are urging all G8 governments to "support the immediate multilateral and
bilateral debt cancellation for Haiti or a moratorium on all debt service payments
until such a time as the debt is cancelled".
One of the concerned
NGOs is the Haiti Advocacy Platform Ireland-UK (HAPI-UK), and its coordinator,
Anne McConnell, issued a release stating that Haiti was facing a severe crisis
and unless it was relieved of its million-dollar international debts, the people
of Haiti would continue to suffer.
"As UK Chancellor Alistair
Darling joins other G8 leaders in Japan this week, UK NGOs join others to call
on him to support immediate debt cancellation for Haiti,” said McConnell.
“Twenty eight UK, European, US and Canadian NGOs have spoken out and said
that it is unacceptable for Haiti to continue to pay US$1million in illegitimate
debt payments each year to the World Bank and other institutions while the people
of Haiti suffer"
Haiti is currently in its final stages of the
World Bank/IMF Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, but with over
US$50million in scheduled debt to pay this year – more than a quarter of
its spending on public health alone – the country is not expected to reach
completion point until late 2008 at the earliest.
In 2009, Haiti is
projected to pay out US$50.9million in debt service payments to its creditors.
According to the 28 NGOs who signed the June 11 letter, if Haiti does not reach
its completion point under the HIPC initiative the figure would rise to US$59.6million.
According to McConnell, advocates argue that these are funds that
the Haitian government can ill afford to pay, and would be better spent addressing
the island’s more pressing issues of food, health, the environment and other
social services.
"Given the current political and social turmoil
in the country, it is highly likely that completion point under the international
debt relief scheme will be delayed," it was stated in the letter."This
means that debt cancellation will happen too late for a country that cannot afford
to feed its own people".
Haiti is most notoriously known as one
of the poorest countries in the Americas with around 80% of the population living
on less than US$2 (£1) a day. The impoverished Caribbean territory has had
a long history plagued with political, economic and social unrest ; the most recent
having been the nation-wide riots in April 2008 that gripped the country, caused
by soaring prices of food and shortages of staples like rice, beans, flour and
corn.
Members of the civil society organisations are calling for G8
leaders to use their influence within the Boards of major multilateral financial
institutions to alleviate the current state of dire poverty plaguing the island.
"Leading UK NGOs urge ministers to take concrete action in Osaka
- to use their voice and vote at the multilateral development banks to achieve
immediate debt cancellation for Haiti - and a moratorium on debt payments",
said the release by McConnell.
