9 February 2010 | 10-0092 |

Peter Kenny

Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit. Photo:© Peter Kenny / ENI

Geneva (ENI). The general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, has written to the finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations to thank them for pledging to write off Haiti's outstanding debts to G7 countries.

At the same time, Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran, warned that the approval by the International Monetary Fund of more loans to Haiti after its devastating earthquake on 12 January would cause extra problems for the stricken country.

"The decision of the IMF approving more loans to Haiti after the earthquake will only add to Haiti’s burden, nearly doubling the country's debt to that institution, as there is no clear willingness or definitive moves yet to cancel the country's current debt," Tveit wrote in his letters sent individually to the ministers.

On 22 January, the general secretary of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation, the Rev. Ishmael Noko, had said, "I call for an immediate and complete moratorium on Haiti's debt service obligations and cancellation of the remaining debt."

Noko added, "I call for international assistance to Haiti - including that now offered by the International Monetary Fund in the context of this emergency - to be provided in the form of grants, not loans such as that which set the newly born republic on the road to intractable poverty."

Tveit followed Noko's comments on 25 January, when he released a statement from the WCC saying, "The time has come for the international community – politicians, business and civil society organizations – to focus on how Haiti can become sustainable."

The WCC has published on its Web site the text of Tveit's 8 February letter of thanks to Canada's finance minister, James M. Flaherty, who recently hosted a G7 meeting in his country. Similar letters of appreciation also went to the finance ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. Tveit expressed the hope that that the G7 move would, "encourage other countries and multilateral institutions to commit to the unconditional cancellation of Haiti's debts".

In his letter to Flaherty, Tveit said, "It is in this context that the WCC issued a statement on 25 January 2010 calling for the immediate and full cancellation of Haiti's foreign debt, as the quake-stricken country needs a broader plan to support recovery, poverty eradication and sustainable development.

"We take this opportunity to reiterate this call and ask that international financial institutions take urgent measures to cancel Haiti's debts, and that all financial support to Haiti be grant-based and non-debt creating."

On 12 January, an earthquake virtually destroyed Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince. International agencies says more than 200 000 people died in the disaster, 250 000 were injured, and 1.5 million lost their homes.

In his letter, and with regard to the IMF Tveit said that he regretted the monetary fund had not shown, "clear willingness", nor made, "definitive moves yet to cancel the country's current debt".

On 20 January, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the institution was, "working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt," including the IMF's latest interest-free loan of US$100 million. "If we succeed – and I am sure we will succeed – even this loan will turn out to be finally a grant because all the debt will have been deleted," Strauss-Kahn said.

Some reports since then have indicated that other IMF officials have shown less enthusiasm than Strauss-Kahn for such a move.

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