Mark Curtis writing in the Guardian reveals the truth of the Gleneagles lies from the Scottish 2005 G8 summit, and how the definitions given over what constitues aid and how beneificiary countries will be changed, are completely false. Worst of all, Curtis details how when the Gleneagles men talked of their generous debt relief, they failed to mention how this money replaces foreign aid from the countries themselves and from International Non Governmental Organisations such as the World Bank.
The G8 agreed to increase aid from rich countries by $48bn a year by 2010. When Tony Blair announced this to parliament, he said that “in addition … we agreed to cancel 100% of the multilateral debts” of the most indebted countries. He also stated that aid would come with no conditions attached. These were big claims, all of which can now be shown to be false.
Far from representing a “100%” debt write-off, the deal applies initially to only 18 countries, which will save just $1bn a year in debt-service payments. The 62 countries that need full debt cancellation to reach UN poverty targets are paying 10 times more in debt service. And recently leaked World Bank documents show that the G8 agreed only three years’ worth of debt relief for these 18 countries. They state that “countries will have no benefit from the initiative” unless there is “full donor financing”.
The government’s claim that debt relief will free up resources for health and education is also a deception. The deal explicitly says that those countries receiving debt relief will have their aid cut by the same amount. If, say, Senegal is forgiven $100m a year in debt service, World Bank lending will be slashed by the same amount. That sum will be retained in the World Bank pot for lending across all poor countries, but only when they sign up to World Bank/IMF economic policy conditions.
How the G8 lied to the world on aid
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Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
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But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
[Matthew 23:1-7, 13-14]
Like you said Marshall, better than I. Is actual action on the behalf of the worlds poor really so difficult a thing to fathom that our leaders must pretend to us that we have progress when in fact we have none? We in the West make others toil to make our lives ever more oppulent and easy, while deliberately refusing to ease the burdens and hardships in theirs. Poor Christians are we.