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POLITICA >>La Dette | ||||
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Lemoine, M. 2001. La Dette. L'Atalante (Printed by Bussière, Saint-Amand-Montrond, Cher, France). Rating: JJJJ About the Author: Maurice Lemoine is deputy chief editor at Le Monde Diplomatique. Books by the same author: Sucre Amer; Cent Portes de l'Amérique Latine. |
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Review To describe La Dette as a novel would be an understatement. It is also far more than that, it is an emotional and at times poetic description of the plight of Amazonian farmers, whose lives are being destroyed by events thousands of miles away, by the foreign debt which their country owes to international financial institutions. It shows how IMF officials spend two weeks in five-star hotels and force the government to implement programs which have intolerable consequences on third-world peasants. For example, the subsistance farmers are told to produce cash crops, which leads to overproduction, which leads to a fall in prices. With this decreased income, the farmers are forced to buy the very food products which they once grew themselves, but these foods are now more expensive, since they must now be imported from elsewhere. These absurd policies lead to starvation and a dramatic fall in living standards, and is only worsened by the rampant corruption of certain "officials" who absorb most of the foreign cash destined for the establishment of the crops. Worse, the vicious cycle of debt is exposed in all its shameful magnitude: the farmers, to whom the aid never arrived (because of the corruption), and who face decreasing revenues from the cash crop production and the need to buy ever more expensive foods, are unable to pay back the debt. However, the international donors expect them to pay interest with what meagre income they retain. This interest is cashed by foreign banks and on the large scale, contributes to capital flight from South to North. Latin America's interest payments on the debt are thus funding North American prosperity, while robbing the poor of their very means of survival. |
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