ACT NOW: Support Debt Justice for Zimbabwe

14 April 2012 by Jubilee Debt Campaign

With fresh elections due next year, debt campaigners in Zimbabwe want lessons learned about the country’s $7 billion debt.

Take action now to support their call.

Zimbabwe stopped paying most of its debts in the year 2000. Since then, Zimbabweans have faced economic chaos and social upheaval. But today there is new hope.

The Movement for Democratic Change is in charge of the Finance Ministry as part of a coalition government, and new elections are due next year. We don’t know who will win, and there’s no guarantee that things will automatically get better for people in Zimbabwe.

But, spurred on by the ‘threat’ of lending by China, Zimbabwe’s creditors are already discussing the future of the country’s crippling $7 billion debt. Some international financiers want this swept under the carpet, as part of a new battle for control in Africa, this time with China. They think it’s enough to ‘forgive and forget’.

But our sister campaigners in Zimbabwe fear the mistakes of the past could happen all over again. They want the role of lending and debt in Zimbabwe’s economic crisis to be examined. Details already uncovered include:

But Zimbabweans simply don’t know the origins of all $7 billion of debt, nor who benefited from the loans in the first place. That’s why they’re demanding a full audit of the debt.

Take Action

Please email Donald Kaberuka, the President of the African Development Bank, which is leading the discussions among Zimbabwe’s creditors, and ask him to support a democratic audit of Zimbabwe’s debts.

View online : http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org....