c. 2007 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A coalition of religious and secular groups is working to ensure that January marks not only the beginning of a new year but also a fresh push to eliminate the debts owed by impoverished nations.

Jubilee USA is using 2007 to advocate multilateral debt relief for poor nations, claiming they can ill afford to repay wealthy nations and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The group has timed its campaign to coincide with a new biblically based Sabbath year, which calls for debts to be forgiven once every seven years. After seven cycles of seven years, a Jubilee year, when debts should be forgiven and land given back to the poor, is mandated. The last Jubilee year was in 2000.

Two members of Congress, Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., plan to introduce a bill that would require the Treasury Department to advocate for debt cancellation at the IMF and World Bank.

“The World Bank and the IMF basically work on the principle of one dollar, one vote,” said Jubilee USA spokeswoman Kristin Sundell. “As the largest contributor to the IMF and World Bank, the U.S. has a very strong, controlling share of the vote … so if the U.S. changes its position it would really go a long way toward changing policies.”

The bill calls for debt cancellation for every country that needs additional funds in order to meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Bachus, who sponsored the bill during the last session as well, is a strong advocate for debt relief.

“My faith has taught me that to whom much is given, much is required,” Bachus, a Baptist, said in a statement. “Debt relief is not only beneficial to the Third World countries that are recipients, but it is clearly in our own economic and national security interest as well.”

Although the bill never made it out of committee in the last Congress, it may find more support with the new Democratic leadership. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the new Financial Services Committee chairman, was one of 85 co-sponsors of the bill last session.

A number of religious leaders are pushing debt relief as well, spreading the word through their congregations and using texts from Christian and Jewish Scriptures to make their case.

“Is there any way people of faith cannot be concerned about the poor, sick, hungry, oppressed and debt-laden around the world?” asked the Rev. Stan Duncan, a pastor with the United Church of Christ in Massachusetts and leader in the Jubilee USA movement.

“Being concerned about people without health care, educational resources and infrastructure resources because all their money is being drained to pay debts _ some of which are two generations old _ is part of most major religions’ reason for being.”

Jubilee USA was formed in 1997 to campaign for debt relief in the year 2000. That movement resulted in substantial bilateral debt cancellation between countries, Sundell said.

“It was a significant victory,” Sundell said, “but did not touch multilateral debt that countries owe to organizations like the IMF and World Bank.”

This time around, Jubilee USA also is advocating the cancellation of what it calls “odious debt” _ money it says was lent unfairly, improperly or at overly high interest rates.

Sundell cited South Africa as an example.

“The apartheid regime took money and used it to prop up the regime,” Sundell said. “Because South Africa is a middle-income country, today people under the new government are being forced to pay back that money.”

But Gita Bhatt, a spokeswoman for the IMF, said defining odious debt is a difficult task.

“As far as we can tell, there is no consensus within the international community on how to define odious debt,” Bhatt said. “In contrast, the international community does recognize that a state’s government is generally bound by the debt obligations incurred by a preceding government.”

KRE/PH END BOYLE