breaking the chains:
For every $1 that developing countries receive from rich countries in aid, they return $5 in debt repayments.
(...) [a nice, simple, succinct explanation] The genesis of the crisis lies in a world economy saturated by dollars in the 1960s and ’70s, as the dollar replaced gold as the currency of exchange, and the world paid for a growing US budget deficit.When oil-exporting countries in OPEC reduced oil supply in 1973 and oil prices soared, much of this profit was again deposited in dollars in Western banks. Banks, eager to reduce the supply of dollars, to prevent a collapse in the dollar price and to make profit, lent out more money to developing countries, many of which were newly liberated from colonialism. Little thought was given to how useful these loans were or to whom they were being lent. Then, Ronald Reagan came to power in the US. Interest rates soared and the price of commodities, on which many poor countries depended, slumped. Poor countries earned less for their exports and paid more interest on their loans. They had to borrow more simply to repay the interest. The debt crisis was born.
(...) Haiti still owes $1.3bn to international creditors like the World Bank. Some 40 per cent of this was run up by Papa Doc and Baby Doc, who stole parts of these loans for themselves and used the rest to repress the population. When the US flew Baby Doc out of Haiti in 1986, he is estimated to have taken $90m with him.
(...) In 1995, the IMF forced Haiti to slash its rice tariff from 35 per cent to 3 per cent, enriching US business through soaring imports. A country that was self-sufficient in rice is now dependent on foreign imports at the mercy of global market prices.
(...) The Suharto regime in Indonesia was reputed to be one of the most corrupt and brutal governments in modern times. Suharto stole up to $35bn from his country and killed up to 1 million people in political witch-hunts, yet the World Bank still lent it $30bn. Today, the Indonesian people continue to pay $2m every hour for their former dictator’s debt, while 100 million Indonesians live in poverty.