by Joe Emers­berger and Jeb Sprague

Despite being the most impov­er­ished coun­try in the West­ern Hemi­sphere, Haiti lags behind many coun­tries in the Amer­i­cas in obtain­ing debt relief through a pro­gram run by the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

A hard-hitting paper pub­lished in Decem­ber by the Wash­ing­ton D.C.-based Cen­ter for Eco­nomic and Pol­icy Research (CEPR) argues that the IMF and World Bank should dis­re­gard the rules of their HIPC (Heav­ily Indebted Poor Coun­try) pro­gram: “Haiti’s debt should be can­celled with­out fur­ther delay,” wrote Mark Weis­brot and Luis San­doval, authors of the study enti­tled “Debt Can­cel­la­tion for Haiti: No Rea­son for Fur­ther Delays.”

In Decem­ber the Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune

Mar­lene Bastien, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami/Haitian Women of Miami

The CEPR study cites a report by the IMF’s own Inde­pen­dent Eval­u­a­tion Office

and Argentina, most notably, have achieved impres­sive eco­nomic growth and poverty alle­vi­a­tion in recent years by reject­ing IMF orthodoxy.

The CEPR study also noted that mul­ti­lat­eral insti­tu­tions were key par­tic­i­pants in a US led aid embargo on the gov­ern­ment of Jean Bertrand Aris­tide from 2000 to 2004: “There is con­sid­er­able evi­dence that this cut off of aid was part of a delib­er­ate effort by the U.S. gov­ern­ment to desta­bi­lize and ulti­mately top­ple the elected gov­ern­ment of Haiti.… Because of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in this effort, the mul­ti­lat­eral insti­tu­tions should at the very least can­cel Haiti’s debt as rapidly as possible.”

Jef­frey Sachs recalled, “U.S. offi­cials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a balance-of-payments cri­sis, a rise in infla­tion and a col­lapse of liv­ing stan­dards, all of which fed the rebellion.”

Accord­ing to the Jubilee Debt Cam­paign, 40% of Haiti’s pub­lic debt stems from loans made to the US-backed dic­ta­tor­ships of Fran­cois and Jean Claude Duva­lier which bru­tal­ized and plun­dered Haitians from 1957 to 1986.

In March of 2007, US Con­gress­woman Max­ine Waters66 cospon­sorsInsti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) has urged US cit­i­zens to pres­sure their elec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tives to sup­port the resolution.

Bastien observes that “Haiti’s debt is an alba­tross, a form of present-day enslave­ment that main­tains poverty and des­per­a­tion — a bur­den on its gov­ern­ment, peo­ple and future.”

IMF and World Bank offi­cials were asked to com­ment on the CEPR study but did not respond to requests.