Cost of lining up with the rich boys

Over the summer, one of the media's favourite good news stories was the arrival in Killybegs of the most spectacular addition to the Irish fishing fleet, Kevin McHugh's Atlantic Dawn. It is, as the reports repeatedly told us, the largest fishing vessel in the world. We were all supposed to feel very proud that such a sophisticated floating factory carries the Irish flag. The Atlantic Dawn symbolises the growing power and wealth of our once-peripheral economy. Only in passing was it mentioned that the ship would be too large to fish in EU waters and would spend most of its time working off the west coast of Africa.

There was no real sign of unease at this revelation. There were few expressions of concern at the subtext of the story: having overfished the home waters, the floating industrial sea-monsters of the rich north are moving on to the relatively pristine seas of the south. What effect will this have on the fragile coastal economies of West Africa? How would we feel if giant African factory ships were moving into our waters and hoovering up some of our richest natural resources?

The coverage of the Atlantic Dawn was a microcosm of the way our attitudes have lagged behind the changes in Ireland's place in the world. The plot of the movie running in our heads is still "plucky little nation overcomes colonialism and adversity". It is not yet "privileged northern nation benefits from the gross inequalities of the world economy".

We may trot out a hackneyed sense of postcolonial solidarity when we're looking for a seat on the UN Security Council, but when it really matters we tend to play dumb or line up with the rich boys. This is what Charlie McCreevy will be doing on our behalf in Prague this week at the meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

By far the most important question before those meetings is what to do about the disastrous social and environmental costs of the mountain of debt which the world's poorest countries owe the IMF and the World Bank. What are known as HIPCs (heavily indebted poorer countries) are being ravaged by the cost of servicing debts to these institutions and to the international banking system of which they are part. Desperately poor people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are being ground deeper into the dirt as interest on debts which can never be repaid eats up the money that should go to health, education and the provision of clean water and decent housing. Already this year, about five million children have died as a result of cutbacks in health services so the international bankers can be paid.

THE haemorrhage of debt service easily drowns out the flow of new loans and credits from the IMF and the World Bank. Between 1992 and 1998, the poorest countries paid the World Bank and the IMF nearly $7 billion more than they received. The public and private aid donations that make us feel good lose much of their meaning in this context. The £200 million Bob Geldof raised through Live Aid would just about cover half a week's debt repayments from the poorest countries. In 1999, a country like Zambia spent 72 per cent of the donor aid it received servicing loans and credits.

The justification for this systematic cruelty is that these countries borrowed the money so they must pay it back. But it is not "countries" that are being crucified to pay the debt. It is people. In most cases, these people, far from making democratic decisions to incur debts, were victims of the brutal and corrupt regimes that spent the money on the armies that terrorised them. Now, they are being asked to pay for their own oppression.

If people in undemocratic societies are responsible for what their past rulers have done, then we in Ireland are guilty of, for example, the colonisation of India. In any case, if strict commercial logic is to be applied, the IMF and the World Bank should be treated like any bank that lends money to hoodlums.

Many readers may well have in the back of their heads a vague notion that this is being dealt with. Under pressure from the Jubilee 2000 campaign, and apparently inspired by the millennium, the world's leaders promised at Cologne last year to lift the burden of debt from the wretched of the earth. Yet little or nothing has been done, and it has become clear that the IMF and the World Bank have no enthusiasm for the complete debt relief necessary for the poorest countries to have any chance of recovery.

BUT surely Ireland at least is on the side of the angels? After all our posturing at the UN, it's a fair bet that most Irish people probably believe we are behind the Jubilee 2000 campaign all the way. They should remember that not for nothing do we have the most right-wing Minister for Finance since Ernest Blythe. Forget Bertie and Brian Cowen plamasing everyone at the UN summit a while ago. Just look at the Department of Finance's recently released report on Ireland's involvement with the IMF and the World Bank.

After all the usual noises about how "highly sympathetic" the Government is the report gets down to brass tacks: "At the same time, the Government is not convinced that a call for total relief for all the HIPC countries is feasible in so far as this relates to debt owed to the multilateral financial institutions (i.e. the World Bank and the IMF). The Government has concerns about providing debt relief to countries that have shown no commitment to economic reform. Blanket debt relief would reward those who have failed to implement sound economic management."

"Economic reform", in this context,, is code for adopting free market policies favourable to transnational corporations and the rich north. So this is what Charlie McCreevy will be telling the world's poor in Prague: we know what's good for you and until you do what we want your children will continue to die from easily preventable diseases. You can call that Ireland finally joining the rich, neocolonial world. Or you can, if you prefer, call it nauseating smugness.

fotoole@irish-times.ie