Contact:
Ernie Schibli, Public Education Coordinator
Tel.: (514) 933-6797
Home: (514) 481-6544
Email: ernie@s-j-c.net

Social Justice Committee to hold downtown protest during Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President’s Montreal visit, urges IDB to provide full and immediate debt cancellation for impoverished Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Montreal- 1 June 2006 – The Social Justice Committee will hold a public demonstration next Thursday on the occasion of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Luis Alberto Moreno’s visit to Montreal, calling upon the IDB to participate in the international effort to cancel the debt of impoverished countries. The IDB President is scheduled to speak on the closing day of the International Economic Forum of the Americas/Conference of Montreal taking place from June 5th to the 8th at the Hilton Bonaventure. This conference will provide an opportunity for invited high-level public and private sector representatives, academics and civic society members to discuss major international economic and development issues.

Demonstrators gathered outside the conference will draw attention to the crippling debt faced by a number of Latin American and Caribbean nations, urging the IDB to join in recent debt cancellation efforts led by multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The SJC is requesting that the IDB provide 100 % debt cancellation for Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guyana, as have done the World Bank and the IMF through the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative and the G8-sponsored Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). The SJC asks the IDB to also provide debt cancellation for other impoverished countries in the region such as Ecuador and Haiti.

“Creditor nations and international financial institutions have come to recognize the close relationship between debt cancellation and poverty reduction in developing countries, but the actions taken to date have been uneven. At present, all eyes are on the IDB to move swiftly and provide full debt cancellation to impoverished Latin American and Caribbean nations”, said Ernie Schibli, SJC public education coordinator.

The IDB Board of Governors did raise the issue of debt cancellation during its recent annual meeting, but only managed in setting up an ad hoc committee to report on the subject before the year’s end.

The Social Justice Committee joins other debt campaign organizations around the world in calling for accelerated and unconditional debt relief for impoverished countries, and continues to raise awareness of the root causes of hunger, poverty and human rights abuse through its education programs.