More news on Iraq's debts

From Jubilee Iraq: Negotiations on Saddam's debts are reaching their most critical phase. The "Paris Club" cartel of major creditors is meeting on 17 November and you could make a massive contribution by coming to Paris to show the world that Iraq will not be pushed around by Saddam's creditors. The Paris Club are not accepting that most of the debt is odious and are using it to force through the IMF's economic policies. Jubilee Iraq's newly appointed Iraq Director, Dr.Shakir Issa, has been make tremendous progress raising awareness about the debt threat, and has received strong support from Grand Ayatollah Sistani and others.
Meanwhile journalist Naomi Klein has been helping us to shed light on the murky issue of reparations, particularly the attempt by James Baker's Carlyle Group to help Kuwait receive full payment, contradicting Baker's supposed role as Bush's special envoy to help cancel the debt.
Protest outside the Paris Club, Wednesday 17 November 2004 from 3-6pm This protest is being organized at very short notice because the date of the Paris Club was only recently made public. This is one of the most important events for Iraq's future, and you could make a big impact by day off work and coming. 19 creditors, including America, Britain, France, Germany and Russia, are meeting behind closed doors to decide how much debt payment they will squeeze from Iraq in 2005 and beyond. They refuse to admit that this debt is illegitimate and are demanding that, in return for as little as 50% debt reduction, Iraq must fulfil dangerous economic conditions including increasing fuel prices, ending food rations and privatising many state enterprises.
Together with the French and German debt campaigns, Jubilee Iraq has called a demonstration at the Bercy, the French Treasury, where the Paris Club will be meeting to play judge, jury and executioner. We are calling for a better treatment for Iraq, based on a fair arbitration tribunal and the odious debt legal doctrine. The peaceful demonstration - including Iraqi dancing, prayer and speeches (and any other ideas you have) - will take place on the Wednesday 17th November between 3-6pm at Place du Bataillon du Pacifique outside the Bercy metro station (on metro lines 14 or 6, in the South East corner of central Paris, just South of Gare du Lyon). Although this demonstration is primarily for Iraqis, we warmly welcome the solidarity of other Arabs and Europeans as well, so please come along!
Please let us know you're coming: If you are coming from France please contact Zaid Al-Ali on +33 623152633, if you are coming from UK or elsewhere please contact Yasar Mohammed Salman Hasan on +44 7932545707 or yasar@yastec.freeserve.co.uk, and hopefully we can arrange for groups to travel together. More information, including maps, flights, trains. Media: French media contact Zaid Al-Ali on +33 623152633, other media contact Justin Alexander on +44 7813 137171.

The Paris Club, together with the IMF, traditional make debt relief conditional on countries implementing a wide range of economic policies which are often damaging and certainly limit the countries' freedom to make decisions based on the needs of their people. This is now happening to Iraq. These policies are outlined in the Letter of Intent, a few selection so which follow.
"21. In the area of structural reform, a new foreign direct investment law was enacted that allows ownership in most sectors of the economy (except natural resources, real estate, and insurance) providing national treatment for foreign firms."
"32. By end-2004 the government will increase the domestic prices of oil derivative products (including gasoline), a measure that is expected to bring US$1 billion in revenue in 2005. This initial adjustment is part of a plan to bring domestic energy prices to cost recovery levels by end-2009.." In other words subsidies on fuel will be phased out completely over five years.
The next section on "broadening the tax base" mentions new taxes, including on cell phones and cars, which will affect a large part of the population.
"37. The government is also committed to enhance the effectiveness of the social safety net by moving over the medium term from a food ration system to a cash distribution system targeted at the poor and unemployed." This might be sensible, however the danger is that the definition of "the poor" could be much narrower than the current ration system and the amount of "cash distribution" could be less compared to the current ration. The World Food Program recently estimated that 25% of families are dependent on the ration and would face serious nutritional problems without it, while War Child's estimate for the Southern four governorates is much higher - 76% of families there are dependent on the ration.