Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Max­ine Waters (D– CA) and Spencer Bachus (R– AL) are call­ing on their col­leagues to sign their bi-partisan let­ter to the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury (below) urg­ing him to 1) expe­dite the can­cel­la­tion of Haiti’s debts to the World Bank, the Inter-American Devel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and other mul­ti­lat­eral finan­cial insti­tu­tions, and 2) urge an imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion of debt ser­vice pay­ments from Haiti.

Both Rep­re­sen­ta­tives have gone out on a limb for the poor of Haiti, and now they need you to tell your Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to stand up with them. Haitians need you too: recent head­lines remind us of Haitians eat­ing cook­ies made of salt, but­ter and dirt, because they can­not afford food. While Haitians are forced to eat dirt, their gov­ern­ment is forced to send almost $1 mil­lion each week in debt ser­vice to wealthy banks that were estab­lished to fight poverty. Over half of Haiti’s out­stand­ing loans went to dic­ta­tors like Fran­cois “Papa Doc” and Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duva­lier, who spent the money on fur coats, fast cars and death squads. Haiti’s poor are now repay­ing the loans, by eat­ing dirt and by fore­go­ing ele­men­tary edu­ca­tion and basic healthcare.

The Inter­na­tional Finan­cial Insti­tu­tions (IFIs) rec­og­nized that Haiti’s debt is unjust when they accepted Haiti into their debt can­cel­la­tion pro­grams last year. But these pro­grams would only can­cel about half of Haiti’s debt, after more wait­ing (a year or more) and only if Haiti makes changes to its econ­omy that could exac­er­bate hunger (see Debt Can­cel­la­tion for Haiti: No Rea­son for Fur­ther Delays, by the Cen­ter for Eco­nomic Pol­icy Research).

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Waters and Bachus have also intro­duced H. Res. 241, the Haiti Debt Can­cel­la­tion Res­o­lu­tion, but they felt that issu­ing a quicker let­ter right now is war­ranted by the extreme suf­fer­ing in Haiti. Their let­ter also seeks to broaden its appeal to Repub­li­can House Mem­bers who under­stand that debt relief is the just, the decent and the right thing to do, but dis­agree with H.Res. 241’s stance against IFI con­di­tions placed on debt relief. The let­ter seeks to imme­di­ately alle­vi­ate poverty in Haiti by imme­di­ately stop­ping Haiti’s pay­ments to the inter­na­tional finan­cial insti­tu­tions, which would allow the gov­ern­ment to imme­di­ately invest the money in pub­lic ser­vices that can save lives.

$1 mil­lion per week would go a long way in Haiti, where half the pop­u­la­tion strug­gles to sur­vive on $1 US per day or less. Please do what you can to keep that money in Haiti.

A call-in script is below. If you need more infor­ma­tion, includ­ing fact sheets, analy­ses and an activist toolkit, see the Haiti Debt Can­cel­la­tion sec­tion of www.HaitiJustice.org.

Phone Script to call your Mem­ber to can­cel Haiti’s debt!

(If you are pressed for time, just say­ing the first para­graph will help. If you can, go through the whole script). If your Rep­re­sen­ta­tive has not co-sponsored H.Res. 241, ask her or him to do that too!

My name is XXX and I live in YYYY.  I sup­port debt can­cel­la­tion to release resources to fight poverty in Haiti. I am call­ing to encour­age Rep­re­sen­ta­tive XXX to sign on to the bi-partisan let­ter to the Sec­re­tary of the U.S. Trea­sury, urg­ing the imme­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of Haiti’s debt.

Haiti is the most impov­er­ished coun­try in the West­ern hemi­sphere. Close to one in four chil­dren are chron­i­cally mal­nour­ished. Peo­ple are forced to eat cakes made of dirt, because they have noth­ing else. At the same time, the gov­ern­ment is forced to send almost $1 mil­lion per week to the World Bank and other banks that were set up to fight poverty.

The bi-partisan let­ter was issued by Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Spencer Bachus and Max­ine Waters. To sign on or for more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Kath­leen Sen­g­stock in Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Max­ine Waters’ office at (202) 225‑2201.

Thank you for your time!