VERDICT

The FOREIGN DEBT TRIBUNAL met from April 26th to 28th , 1999, at the João Caetano Theater in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the site where the Independence hero and martyr, Tiradentes, was hanged. Some one thousand two hundred
people from various parts of Brazil and other countries around the world attended and participated in the event. Organized by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) and Caritas, the National Council of
Christian Churches (CONIC), the Ecumenical Service Coordination Bureau (CESE), the Popular Movements Center (CMP) and the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), and the Institute of Brazilian Lawyers (IAB), with the
support of CORECON/RJ, SENGE/RJ, SINDECON/RJ, IERJ, Koinonia and PACS, the Tribunal convened to hear the case of Brazil's foreign debt and to reinforce the Jubilee 2000 Campaign to cancel the debt of the most heavily
indebted, lowest income countries.

Brazil, along with other Latin American and Caribbean countries, is considered an "emerging" nation with a medium income level. Its income distribution profile, however, is among the worst in the world, with one quarter of its population - that is, 40 million people - below the poverty line. The Tribunal was thus called on to identify the relationship between Brazil's foreign debt and this situation of injustice and misery. In addition to pinpointing the factors that lead to and constitute the foreign debt, and then cause it to grow out of all proportion, and to identifying
those responsible for it, the purpose of the Tribunal was to define alternative policies and strategies of action for sustainable means to surmount the crisis of foreign indebtedness and its social and environmental consequences.

After four sessions, in which an extensive and diverse body of documented material was submitted and testimony and declarations heard from Brazilians and specialists from other countries - on the international financial system, on Brazil's indebtedness, on illustrative cases of indebtedness in other countries, and on prospects for action to confront and overcome the Brazilian debt crisis - this People's Tribunal, constituted by representatives of various sectors of the Brazilian public, reached the following verdict:

WHEREAS

1. According to the studies and figures submitted to the Tribunal, the debt of the poorest, most heavily indebted countries has already been paid, and in current accounting terms, cannot be paid;

2. Since last rescheduled five years ago, Brazil's debt has increased from US$ 148 billion at year end 1994 to US$ 270 billion in March 1999, while in the same period, around US$ 126 billion was paid to foreign creditors. This rate of borrowing is unsustainable to the point that almost all new contracts are tied to servicing the existing debt, thus closing a vicious circle of indebtedness;

3. The USA's unilateral decision at the end of the 70s to raise interest rates from their historic levels of between 4 and 6 percent to more than 20 percent, in only a few months, constituted a betrayal of good faith in the contracts and, in addition to forcing debtor countries to take out new loans in order to pay interest, entailed additional payments which meant losses of US$ 106 billion for Latin America;

4. The fact that creditors impose a risk premium on debtors so as to cover themselves against possible inability to pay entitles the latter to declare themselves insolvent without onus;

5. Governments aligned with major corporations and banks with foreign debts have made a practice of nationalizing private foreign debt and socializing the related costs, thus committing public funds still further to servicing
the foreign debt;

6. Strategic public enterprises have been used as instruments for excessive borrowing, thus compromising their financial health and capacity for investment, which has served as a pretext for later privatization;

7. There exists a clear connection among foreign debt, excessive internal public borrowing and efforts to attract short-term foreign capital, which is subjecting Brazil to a policy of extremely high interest rates;

8. As the Brazilian government regards the financial system as an absolute and an end in itself, it has sacrificed the part of the budget earmarked for social policy spending and for invigorating the domestic economy in
order to keep financial debt payments up to date. As a result it has abandoned health, education, policies for employment, for the demarcation of indigenous lands and to ensure conditions for the survival of indigenous
peoples, to give due value to the elderly and children, to carry out agrarian reform, and to conserve and restore the environment;

9. The IMF's economic and adjustment policies have proven disastrous for countries subjected to them and serve to increase still further those countries' debt and other foreign liabilities, thus constituting a moratorium without end on the social and environmental debts, whose creditors are our children, working women and men of the cities and
countryside, blacks, indigenous peoples and Nature;

10. The USA manipulates the UN, WTO, IMF, World Bank and NATO to suit its strategies to dominate and control the peoples of the world;

11. Brazilian public borrowing has always favored the interests and privileges of the dominant élites;

12. Brazil's excessive indebtedness was generated particularly in the last three decades, which were marked by 21 years of dictatorship and by a transition to civil governments which completed and connived with the
surrender of economic policy to financial capital;

13. This indebtedness was constituted by dictatorial - and thus illegitimate and anti-popular - governments, and their creditors, besides serving as their accomplices, were aware of the risks attendant on these
loans;

14. The expansion of the debt is connected with these élites' connivance with foreign private, governmental and multilateral financial institutions;

15. The foreign debt constitutes an ongoing violation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights drawn up by the UN on December 16, 1966, which calls for recognition of each nations' right to self-determination, to freely pursue its economic development and dispose freely of its natural wealth and resources, and also requires that in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence;

THE MEMBERS OF THE FOREIGN DEBT TRIBUNAL HEREBY FIND UNANIMOUSLY THAT:

Brazil's foreign debt was constituted in breach of Brazilian and international law, and without consulting the Brazilian public. It has favored the élites almost exclusively to the detriment of the majority of the population and is prejudicial to national sovereignty. It is therefore ethically, legally and politically unjust and unsustainable. In real terms it has already been paid and persists only as a mechanism for subjectingand enslaving society to the financial power of usurers and globalized capital, and for transferring wealth to the creditors. For these reasons, this Tribunal condemns the Brazilian debt process, which entails subordination to the interests of international financial capital and the
wealthy countries, backed by the multilateral organizations, as grossly unjust and illegitimate. It holds the dominant élites responsible for the excessive borrowing and for having abdicated from any development plan of
Brazil's own. It holds responsible the governments and politicians who support and further plans to assign Brazil a subordinate position in the globalized economy. It holds responsible those economists, jurists, artists
and intellectuals who provide them with technical and ideological underpinning. It holds responsible the dictatorship of the major media that endeavor to legitimize the debt and stifle debate over alternatives.

It also hereby resolves to communicate this decision to Brazil's legislative, executive and judiciary authorities at the federal, state and municipal levels, that they respect it for the legitimacy of this Tribunal's structure and social function.

Taking upon itself the hope embodied in peoples' struggles for alternatives in their livelihoods, social relations, and economic and social organization, this Tribunal proposes to all the women and men of Brazil the following commitments and strategies for action:

* The union of all peoples in favor of a general and unrestricted canceling of the foreign debts of the most heavily indebted poor countries, there turn of the wealth pillaged from them, with no conditions attached other than that the resources so saved be applied to paying off the social debts under the oversight of society itself, and that the human rights of all citizens be respected in full.

* An audit of the public foreign debt and of the whole process of Brazil's indebtedness, with the active participation of civil society, so as to ascertain in accounting and legal terms whether there is still debt to be paid, from whom it should be collected, and to establish democratic rules for overseeing borrowing.

* A sovereign moratorium, denunciation of the Agreement with the IMF and redefinition of the debts in line with the audit results and with strengthening national sovereignty.

* A development policy centered on the rights of the person and society, built chiefly on Brazil's own material and human resources, and going beyond the current logic and practice of irresponsible borrowing.

* Firm exchange controls, which equip the government to restrain speculation and re-encourage investment in production, including effective mechanisms to control and inspect all the illegal forms in which Brazilian
and foreign currencies, and goods in general, enter and leave the country.

* The re-nationalization and democratization of strategic enterprises.

* The rescheduling of state and municipal debts, with the resources so saved tied to repayment of social and environmental debts, and the refounding of Brazil's federative pact on a democratic, participatory basis.

* Reinforcement of mobilizations and campaigns such as ATTAC, which demand that mechanisms be set up to regulate and tax the circulation of international speculative capital, with a view of creating a fund earmarked
for restoring those most impoverished to a decent life.

* The union of Latin America and the Caribbean peoples in support of common alternative policies and strategies for the continent, in order to confront together the vicious circle of indebtedness and the other factors of impoverishment and subordination that afflict the whole continent.

* Participation of the Jubilee 2000 Campaign, the World Council of Churches and other Brazilian and international institutions, in a mobilization that will lead democratic States to propose to the UN General Assembly a joint
suit be brought before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to judge both the processes that gave rise to and hypertrophied the foreign debt of the heavily indebted impoverished countries, and those responsible.

This Tribunal is a symbolic milestone on a long march. It therefore calls on all Brazilian men and women to join, in hope and without fear, in the initiatives that will grow out of this judgement and to continue to take their stand, in the streets and public places, until we manage to make Brazil truly a motherland for us all, one that offers to all the means to live a life of dignity and full citizenship.

This is our decision. Let it be published and proclaimed. Subscription is hereby authorized to none but all men and women of good faith.

Rio de Janeiro, Tiradentes Gallows, April 28th, 1999

Tradução: Peter Lenny

We are social activists from many different movements and organizations. We are trade unionists, landless farmers, small producers, students, Church workers--men and women of all ages. We decided to come together under the coordination of several organizations such as the CUT - Central Workers Union Federation, the MST - Landless Workers Movement, the CMP - Popular Movements Association, the Rural Women's Movement, the MPA - Small Producers Movement, and the CNBB - National Conference of the Brazilian Bishops, in a march from Rio de Janeiro to Brasília, walking 1,267 km.
Our goal is to bring attention to the difficult historical moment of our society. In order to do that, we have been promoting a series of discussion about the following issues:

1. The Crisis

There is a serious economic and social crisis in Brazil today. The economy is stagnant. The 1980's was known as "the lost decade", and now we are loosing the 1990's as well. Most of our profitable national industries have been privatized. The process of privatization was marked by several claims of corruption and conflict of interests. The economic policies favor large multinational corporations, while small businesses and farmers have been severely hurt. In the last ten years, 942.000 small farmers have lost their land. In 1998, more than 23.000 small and medium-sized enterprises went bankrupt.

The Brazilian government paid more than $150 billion in interest-rates of its foreign debt in the last five years. At the same time, public services have been scrapped-our education
and health care systems have been dismantled. The levels of unemployment and poverty have never been so high in our history.

This crisis has structural roots. It's a result of policies that subordinate the economy to the interests of international capital, following the rules of the IMF.

2. The Way Out

We know that the solutions for such complex problems are neither simple nor miraculous. But they exist. Brazil is a rich country with great amount of natural resources, an enormous arable area, abundant energy, water, scientific knowledge, and hard-working people. We need to change the course of our economy by implementing an emergency program with a focus on job creation. We need to protect our country's sovereignty and our democratic institutions. In order to achieve this, we propose:

I. Controls over our resources:

1. We need to create mechanisms to prevent capital flight, as well as ways to control speculative capital. We need to stop paying our foreign debt, until a full process of investigation about the origins of the debt is done.
2. We need to reduce our interest rates.
3. We need to eliminate corporate welfare and subsidies to large corporations that promote unemployment and do not generate economical development. We need to increase taxes for the wealthy and for big banks.
4. We need to collect the $7,4 billion earned by some banks with the speculation of the Brazilian currency in January.

II. Distribution of resources

1. We need to invest on our small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to implement a large program to build low-income houses. We need to support land reform and small farmers. We need to guarantee education and health services for all Brazilians. These measures will create millions of jobs and will revitalize our internal market.

III. Political measures

1. We need to suspend our agreement with the IMF, in order to defend our Nation's sovereignty.
2. We need to stop privatizing our national industries and revise the privatization process of our strategic sectors.
3. We need to raise the minimum wage.

We ask the Brazilian people to participate in this debate and to help us find solutions to this crisis. We need to all sectors of our society to organize for social change:

Against Corruption
Against the privatization of our strategic industries
Against IMF control
Against Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government

Popular March for Brazil
July 26th to mid-October '99

October 1999

This call was read and approved during the Poor People's Summit in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, October 9-11, 1998

Today, we in the United States and our brothers and sisters in all parts
of the world face a historic crisis. Millions in the United States are being
denied their basic human rights to housing, food, education, health care
and jobs at living wages and this will worsen as millions more will be cut
off from receiving public assistance this year. As we in the United States
experience the tragic effects of welfare reform, as well as the results of
years of massive layoffs, people all over the world are suffering from
miserable poverty which is deepening every day as a result of the economic
crisis and the unequal distribution of the world's resources. As the world
economic crisis develops, and as a few get richer, the misery of the
majority is worsening.

At the same time, however, people all over the world are fighting back. In
every corner of the world, the poor are fighting for the human right to a
full and dignified life and to create a world without poverty. In every
country in the world, the poor, who are the majority, are refusing to
die.

For this reason, at this time of worldwide crisis and as we face a common
enemy which is a system that is killing all of us, we see the need to
unite not only on a national level, but on an international level. As the
economy globalizes, the struggle of the poor must be an international
struggle.
For too long, our common enemy's attempted to divide the poor in different
countries. Now, if we do not globalize from below to reclaim our world and
our economic human rights, we will die.

We are proposing a March of the Americas which will take place during the
month of October of 1999. Continuing the Poor People's Economic Human
Rights Campaign, we will carry to the court of world opinion the economic
human rights violations that we are suffering all over the world. This
will be the next step in this historic campaign in which poor families from
all
over the United States have participated in documenting economic human
rights violations in this country and in organizing ourselves against
these abuses. During the month of June in 1997, poor and homeless families
from all over the United States marched ten days from Philadelphia to the
United Nations in New York to charge the United States government with
violating the economic human rights of its people. The following year, poor
families from all over the United States traveled a month in the New Freedom
Bus Tour to demand our economic human rights and to let the people of the
United States and the world know that the poor in this country refuse to
die.

In the month of October 1999, poor and homeless families from all of the
Americas, including families from Canada, the United States and Latin
America will march for our lives to the seat of world government. In the
third March for Our Lives to the United Nations, we will march 30 days
from Washington DC to the United Nations in New York City, this time with
our brothers and sisters from all over the Americas in an effort to unite our
struggles for the economic human rights of all. We ask our companeros and
companeras in struggle from all of the Americas to unite with us in this
March of the Americas. Please contact us for more information and to make
plans for this March. We invite everyone to unite in this historic March
in this struggle for our lives.

Kensington Welfare Rights Union
PO Box 50678
Philadelphia, PA 19132
(215) 203-1945
kwru@libertynet.org;
http: //www.libertynet.org/~kwru

Kensington Welfare Rights Union
PO BOX 50678 * Philadelphia, PA 19132 * USA
www.libertynet.org/kwru

Dear Jubilee 2000ers

We request that Jubilee 2000 national coalitions and member organisations please send messages of support for the Jubilee South Summit that begins Thursday, November 18th. Please e-mail solidarity
messages to the Jubilee 2000 SA national secretariat at j2000sec@sn.apc.org

Attached below is a media release about the Jubilee South Summit:

Jubilee 2000 South Africa will this week host an international summit for a "Debt Free Millennium". The Summit will be held from Thursday 18th November to Sunday 21st November 1999 at the Eskom Convention centre, Midrand, Johannesburg.

The Jubilee South Summit is for countries from the South to develop a unified campaign for the cancellation of third world debt and a clear strategy for a debt free millennium. The Summit is also expected to develop critiques of flawed current debt relief initiatives by the IMF and individual creditor nations. The Summit will also identify demonstrations to be organised at international forums such as the WTO negotiations, which will be held in Seattle in December.

Jubilee South is a coalition of movements and activists from the South, which campaigns for the cancellation of third world debt. Activists from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa will attend the Summit - the first of its kind ever held.

Jubilee South argues that the debts owed by the poor South to the rich North countries and creditors are both illegitimate and unpayable. The combined debt of third world countries has risen from $610 billion in 1980 to $2.3 trillion in 1997 in spite of large payments made by these countries each year.

"Don't owe, Won't pay" is a central slogan of the Jubilee South movement. The anti-debt campaign points out that the the debt has been paid several times over by the poor countries of the South. Continuing debt payments are therefore immoral and illegitimate.

Social movements, peasant organisations, trade unions, women's movements and popular movements committed to third world debt cancellation will attend the conference.

International leaders participating include Archbishop Mandlate of Mozambique; Father Luis Baseggio from the Brazilian National Bishops Conference, Joao Pedro Stedile from the directorate of the Landless
Peoples Movement and interim Jubilee South co-ordinator Lidy Nacpil who is a long time political activist and the director of Freedom From Debt Coalition in Philippines.

Other invited delegates are Samir Amin, leading Senegalese intellectual and economist and Nawal el Sa'adawi, renowned Egyptian author and social activist, to mention just a few.

Key leaders of South African civil society will be present, including Cape Town's Archbishop Ndungane; Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the SACP; Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of COSATU; and Molefe Tsele, Chairperson of Jubilee 2000 South Africa.

A media and public briefing will be held on Thursday 18 November at the Eskom conference centre at 10am. All journalists are invited to attend.

Contact numbers:

083 4493934 - Television media
082 5166827 - Radio media
083 448 3955- Print media

Background Information

The Summit follows successful interventions by Jubilee South activists at the G7 Summit in Cologne in June 1999 and at the IMF and World Bank meeting in Washington in October this year. At these events, Jubilee South successfully placed the issue of debt on the international agenda and in
the media spotlight by challenging the very basis of the debt:

1) Most of the debt was taken out by and used to benefit repressive, undemocratic governments
- the apartheid government in South Africa, the military dictatorship in Brazil, and the
Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, to name a few.

2) The debt has been paid many times over. For example, the debt of developing countries grew
250% from 1980 to 1992 even as payments of $1,662 billion were made including $891
billion in principal.

3) Debt payments have become the newest mechanism by which wealth is transferred from
South to North. For example, for every $1 African countries receive in development aid,
they pay $1.31 in service on debt payments.

4) Debt is used by the creditors - often the IMF and World Bank - as leverage through which
"structural adjustment programmes" are forced on third world countries. These programmes
have been shown to have a devastating impact as they diminish spending capacities for social
services and job creation. In addition, because they are imposed against the will of the
people, these programmes eviscerate democracy in our countries.

Jubilee South terms the recent World Bank and IMF debt relief initiatives "a cruel hoax", as they do not involve debt cancellation but rather restructuring of the debt combined with further "structural adjustment programmes" (SAPS). SAPS not only perpetuate third world indebtedness, but also exacerbate its attendant suffering and injustices.

Neville Gabriel
National Secretary

Jubilee 2000 South Africa
43 Fraser Street
HOWICK
3290
South Africa
Tel. +27 (0)33 330 8162
Cell. +27 (0)83 449 3934
E-mail: j2000sec@sn.apc.org