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Genocide victims pay for machetes

Colette Braeckman

>From the closure of the Clabecq steelworks in Belgium to the
Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, most of the struggles
of the end of the century found a tribune and an attentive
audience at the day of reflection "against neo-liberalism
and for humanity" organised in Brussels on 25 January by the
Committee for the Cancellation of Third World Debt (COCAD).

Discussions included child labour, the sex industry, and the
dead-end which globalisation  leads to. Swiss genetician
Albert Jacquard denounced the way universities are
increasingly obliged to adapt their work to the orders of
industry; producing productive workers rather than
independent intellectuals. The phrase "profit-fodder" will
certainly catch on, just as "cannon-fodder" did in its time.

Pierre Galand, president of Belgium's council of development
NGOs (CNCD) has just returned from Rwanda, where, together
with the Canadian economist Michel Chossudowsky, he
investigated the foreign debts of a country facing
impossible challenges: rebuilding national consensus after
the genocide, absorbing a million refugees, judging the
criminals  and reimbursing foreign debts of about one
billion US dollars, or 90% of the total value of goods and
services produced in the country last year. Interest on
these debts represents 46% of Rwanda's export earnings.

This foreign debt increased dramatically in the 1990s,
during the preparation and execution of the genocide. Pierre
Galand's research in the archives of the deposed genocidal
regime revealed evidence that loans from the World Bank, and
balance of payments loans from a range of financiers,
including Belgium and the European Union, were diverted from
their official purposes, and used, in 1993, to buy
cut-throat razors, axes, saws and machetes. Half a million
blades, to be precise.

Matching funds provided through "aid" programmes were used
not to support small scale projects or peasants, but to buy
weapons and uniforms from Belgium and other first-world
countries. One Belgium company delivered 20,000 pairs of
army boots. The invoice, for $500,000, has just been
re-presented for payment to the new Rwandan government.
Galand denounces a double failure. "The Rwandan partner did
not use the funds for the agreed purpose. But the financiers
did not carry out the normal, specified checks. They were
negligent. Why should today's Rwandans, those who escaped
the genocide, pay for the machetes which were the
instruments of that great crime?"

After the defeat of the "genocidal" regime and the victory
of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, which installed a government
of national unity in Kigali, supporters of the previous
regime fled into Zaire, where they created, in Goma, a
"branch" of the National Bank of Rwanda, which continued to
place orders for arms and other supplies, and guarantee
payments. A number of foreign banks accepted these orders
made by the "government in exile," which they considered
more legitimate than the new authorities in Rwanda itself.
Galand cites CitiBank, Dresdner Bank (Germany) and BNP
(France). Some other institutions, like the Belgian bank
BBL, suspended all dealings with the exiled regime.
Galand's presentation was one of the best-attended parts of
the COCAD event, which denounced the fact that Rwanda now
faces $155 m./year interest payments as "illegitimate" and
"hateful". "Cancelling this debt is not a question of
generosity, but is a duty to this nation of victims."


Source: Le Soir, 27 January 1997, p6. "Le Rwanda doit-il
payer une "dette odieuse"?

Interview with Eric Toussaint, event organiser

** Surely cancelling third world debt is not enough to
thwart the neo-liberalism you denounce?

Our catalogue of alternatives is much larger! The northern
assets of the corrupt regimes of the south, like Mobutu's
fortune, should be expropriated, and the funds distributed
to the population. We support the "Tobin tax" -- one Nobel
prize winner's suggestion on how to "put a grain of sand in
the infernal machine of financial speculation" by imposing a
progressive tax on financial transfers. We support all tax
measures which would enable states to have enough room for
manoeuvre to reduce the weight of their foreign debt.
Professor Max Frank of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles has
suggested an exception tax on wealth. The social aspect
should set the priorities!

* Sounds utopian...

The implementation of these alternatives requires a balance
of forces which doesn't exist at this time, neither
electorally, nor in social terms. So, our modest, but
important contribution is part of the wider project to
modify the balance of social forces. Through initiatives
like our "eleven hours against neo-liberalism" actors from
North and South come together to establish what kind of
resistance can be built to oppose neo-liberalism. This is
our third initiative of this kind here in Belgium.

Source: Le Soir, 25 January 1997, p2.