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Odious debt

The economic response to the crisis benefits large companies

26 May 2021 - by Eric Toussaint, Roberto González Amador

Éric Toussaint is interviewed by Roberto González Amador from the Mexican daily La Jornada. The spokesperson for the international network Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts (CADTM) argues for an end to patents [1]. The seeds of a (...)
A country is entitled to refuse to repay a debt

26 November 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Revista Mugica

The following interview, given by Éric Toussaint to the Argentine review Mugica, has been adapted to make it accessible to readers who are not necessarily aware of the details of what is going on in Argentina. The arguments used in the article (...)
Ecuador

We denounce the renegotiation of the debt by Lenín Moreno’s government

3 August 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Maria Lucia Fattorelli, Alejandro Olmos Gaona, Hugo Arias Palacios, Piedad Mancero, Ricardo Patiño, César Sacoto, Ricardo Ulcuango

We are releasing an open letter to the President of Ecuador and his government regarding the debt renegotiation that is under way. The letter is signed by former members of the Ecuadorian Debt Audit Commission (CAIC), including Eric Toussaint, (...)
IMF: if you didn’t like the starter, wait for the main dish

5 July 2020 - by Amandla

The Treasury has made clear that it is seeking a smallanyana three to five year loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of $4.2 billion, at a smallanyana interest rate of 1 or 1.1%. It will also be looking for a loan of $55-60 million (...)
Should South Africa Follow the Law of the Jungle – or the Doctrine of Odious Debt?

30 April 2020 - by Patrick Bond

South Africa’s fierce debates over the costs and benefits of a proposed International Monetary Fund (IMF) bail out of $4.2 billion unveil the country’s massive weaknesses and potential strengths, at a time food protests have moved from the slums (...)
Debt Against the People: an ABC

29 January 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Introduction Over the last ten years Greece has been a prime example of how a country and a people can be deprived of their liberty through clearly illegitimate debt. Since the 19th century, from Latin America to China, Haiti, Greece, Tunisia, (...)
Haiti 10 years after the earthquake: the fight for social and economic justice continues

13 January 2020 - by Iolanda Fresnillo

On January 12 2010 an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale ripped through Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and other parts of Haiti. More than 1.5 million people, representing 15 per cent of the country’s population, were directly (...)
Argentina: facing another debt crisis

18 December 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

After four years of brutal neoliberal policies under Mauricio Macri as President, Argentina is again facing a major debt crisis. Let us remember that when Macri started his mandate in December 2015 he accepted all the injunctions formulated by (...)
South Africa: Cancel Eskom’s odious debt to the World Bank

3 September 2019 - by Jonathan Cannard

Despite significant and wide-ranging concern about the fate of Eskom, the World Bank has recently expressed its full confidence in the state-owned power utility’s ability to complete Medupi power station and ensure national electricity provision. (...)
What we have learned from the US indictment on odious loans to Mozambique

23 January 2019 - by Tim Jones

Yesterday (3 jan 2019) three former employees of Credit Suisse were arrested in London over $2 billion of odious loans to three state owned companies in Mozambique, given in 2013. The loans were given to companies with no revenue, and were not (...)
Break the Taboo on Odious Debts and their Repudiation

7 January 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

This English version of the interview originally published in French by the independent online journal Le Vent Se Lève (LVSL) has been fully revised and complemented by Eric Toussaint. The original French version is available here. Éric (...)
‘Outrageous’ Mozambique debt deal could make 270% profit for speculators

8 November 2018 - by Tim Jones

People of Mozambique to pay $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion on original loan of $760 million, which was not agreed by Mozambique parliament, and which has been of no benefit The government of Mozambique has announced it has reached an agreement (...)
Preface of ’System debt’ by Éric Toussaint

16 July 2018 - by Patrick Saurin

Éric Toussaint has an acute and thorough knowledge of public debt issues, thanks not only to his theoretical research work but also to his involvement in the field (notably in Ecuador and Greece). As he takes us through 19th century to 21st (...)
Rethinking Odious Debt

6 April 2018 - by Pierre Pénet

The doctrine of ‘odious debt’ has often been invoked to call for the cancellation of debts in very specific and complex political contexts. In this stimulating essay, Pierre Pénet endeavours to reconsider its application in today’s society in a (...)
History shows that it is legitimate to repudiate “odious debt”

16 February 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Vittorio De Filippis

Eric Toussaint interviewed by Vittorio De Filippis Published in the French daily Libération on 19 December 2017. Eric Toussaint is the international spokesperson for the CADTM ( Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt). In his latest (...)
The Odious Iraqi Debt

12 December 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

This article, originally written towards the end of 2003, is now published on our website for the first time in English. The odious Iraqi debt is still under-documented today, though it is highly relevant in our research and our proposals (...)
Haiti: From trafficking to debt

11 November 2017 - by Jérôme Duval

This Caribbean country is not in debt, it is a creditor. It is France which owes it money. Explanation by Jerome Duval, of CADTM. Translated by Jenny Bright. Poverty in colonised countries has greatly increased due to a transfer of debt: the (...)
On The Odiousness of Greek Debt

24 April 2017 - by Renaud Vivien, Ilias Bantekas

Abstract Unlike the popular narrative, which suggests that the Greek debt crisis was the result of lavish spending, this article demonstrates that the ‘crisis’ was generated by a transformation of purely private debt into public debt. This (...)
Five Nobel Peace Laureates urge UN to pay off debt to Haiti

14 April 2017 - by Diálogo 2000 – Jubileo sur Argentina

On the eve of the Security Council’s decision to closedown the MINUSTAH, the highly criticized mission it has maintained in Haiti since 2004, five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates call on the UN to ensure reparations and an end to impunity for the (...)
The Debts of the American Empire — Real and Imagined

22 March 2017 - by Max Haiven, Cassie Thornton

From Chicago to Puerto Rico to San Francisco, debt is a terrain of struggle within and against America’s racialized empire of indifference. We are used to speaking about debt as an individual experience, one of lonely insomnia, and of grinding, (...)
Debt audit: An alternative weapon against state capture

20 February 2017 - by Mary Serumaga

Many African nations are mired in huge debts arising from foreign loans that have hardly benefitted the people. The citizens need to audit these debts. Odious debts should be repudiated, damn the consequences. Moreover, as Thomas Sankara (...)
Demystifying Alexander Nahum Sack and the doctrine of odious debt

14 February 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

We here publish, in its entirety, Eric Tousaint’s study of the odious debt doctrine. Only extracts have previously been published. Rarely do people, whether detractors or defenders of the doctrine elaborated by Alexander Sack, take the time to (...)
Tunisia: 6 years after a quasi-revolution, a never-ending interregnum

18 January 2017 - by Fausto Giudice

6 years is nothing when you are 90 years old. But for people aged between 20 and 30, it is a very long time. Six years ago, the Tunisian people witnessed the escape of a petty dictator, whose evacuation to a golden exile in the shadow of the (...)
Banks are responsible for the crisis in Greece

9 January 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The present study shows that the Greek crisis that broke out in 2010 originated in private banks, not in excessive public spending. The so-called bail-out was designed to serve the interests of private bankers and those of dominant countries in (...)
Puerto Rico’s Neocolonial Debt

3 December 2016 - by Pierre Gottiniaux

In 1898 the United States declared war on Spain to ‘free’ Cuba from Spanish domination. Spain was defeated and signed the Treaty of Paris in December 1898, in which it sanctioned Cuba’s independence and ceded to the US several other overseas (...)