Puna: Tricontinental
On 18 July, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres posted the following Tweet: ‘COVID-19 has exposed the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all, the fiction that unpaid care work isn’t work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world. We are all floating on the same sea, but some are in super-yachts and others clinging to drifting debris’.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation (United States), recently mai la that the United States relies upon two ‘monopoly companies’ (Quest and LabCorp) for COVID-19 testing that ‘don’t have enough capacity in their central processing systems for the volumes that are necessary right now’. These monopoly companies – promoted by the free markets that Guterres spoke of – are run on the for-profit motive, which means that they are pono-i-ka manawa processing laboratories that do not have the ‘capacity’ to do more than normal laboratory work; anything more than that is economically inefficient for them. Dr. Shah says that the tests cannot be returned in less than a week or two weeks. ‘With the seven-day lead time’, said Dr. Shah, ‘you basically aren’t testing at all; it’s the structural equivalent of zero tests’. That means that the United States, with a languishing public sector, is essentially doing ʻaʻole hoao ana. Ua loaʻa iā Subin Dennis, kahi mea noiʻi ma Tricontinental: Institute for Social Researcher palapala he hōʻike poʻo maopopo e pili ana i ka pono o kahi ʻoihana aupuni ikaika.
But to build a public sector requires resources. These resources are being drained by the recession triggered by coronavirus, one that is not endogamous to its own economic fundamentals. The various debt suspension programmes, such as the Hoʻolālā Hoʻokuʻu ʻAi ʻAi - ʻae ʻia e ka World Bank a me nā Kuhina Waiwai G20 - ʻaʻole lawa; he Oxfam hou hoike shows that all of the countries that are eligible for this initiative are still required to pay a minimum of US$33.7 billion to service their debts this year. The amount that is being required of them is $2.8 billion per month, which is ‘double the amount Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia combined spent on their annual health budget’.
Aia nā paʻamau ma ka pae no ka papa inoa lōʻihi o nā ʻāina. ʻO Argentina, ʻEkuador, a me Lebanona ua hala mua. Ma muli o kāna pilikia kālā, ua komo ka ʻoihana lapaʻau o Lebanona chaos. Pharmacies, which import drugs using hard currency, closed; the government failed to reimburse hospitals for services used by patients on social security; and unemployment scuttled access to medical insurance. With further financial difficulties, these states will once more cut their disbursements to the health sector, scaling back public health services at a time when their value has been clearly demonstrated.
Recently, the UN’s two main agencies that study the situation of food – the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) – released a comprehensive hoike that showed that in twenty-five countries, hunger will rise to famine levels. These countries stretch from Haiti to Zimbabwe, from Lebanon to Bangladesh. In April, WFP Director David Beasley mai la that the situation of hunger risked ‘a famine of biblical proportions’. Now, Beasley mai la that the updated numbers show that ‘the world’s very poorest families have been forced even closer to the abyss’.
ʻAʻole ʻae ka ʻaiʻē o kēia mau ʻāina iā lākou e hoʻoponopono pono i nā maʻi maʻi ʻekolu: coronavirus, nele i ka hana, a me ka pōloli.
It is in this context that Dilma Rousseff, T. M. Thomas Isaac, Jorge Arreaza, Yanis Varoufakis, Fred M’membe, Juan Grabois, and I released this statement on debt cancellation. We believe that the recession triggered by coronavirus demands far more than milquetoast forms of temporary debt suspension; we believe that debt ka hoʻokuʻu ʻo ia wale nō ke ala i mua i ko mākou manawa o nā pilikia cascading.
Olelo Hoopau aie.
By all accounts, developing country debt now stands at over US$11 trillion. In the remainder of 2020 itself, the debt servicing payments on this debt will amount to US$3.9 trillion. This debt has ballooned over the past several decades, leaving most developing countries in an unsustainable financial situation. Defaults and debt adjustments seem to be a permanent fixture amongst developing countries, coming punctually for reasons that are often external to the fundamentals of their economies.
Ua lilo ʻo Austerity i kūlana mau loa, ʻo ia ka mea i hoʻonāwaliwali i nā ʻōnaehana olakino o nā ʻāina he nui a waiho iā lākou i nā maʻi maʻi honua. ʻO ka hoʻomau ʻana i ka lawelawe ʻana i kā lākou ʻaiʻē a ke koi ʻia e kēia mau ʻaiʻē, ʻo ia ka mea ʻaʻole hiki i nā ʻāina kūkulu ke hoʻoponopono pono i ka maʻi maʻi, ʻaʻole hoʻi e kūkulu i nā ʻōnaehana e pono ai no nā pilikia olakino e hiki mai ana.
ʻO kēlā me kēia kālā i ka lawelawe ʻaiʻē e uku ai i kahi panakō a i ʻole ka mea paʻa paʻa waiwai he kālā hiki ʻole ke hele e kūʻai aku i kahi ventilator a i ʻole kālā kākoʻo meaʻai pilikia. I ka wā pilikia ʻo CoronaShock, ʻaʻole hiki ke pale ʻia kēia a me ka hoʻokele waiwai.
ʻO ka hoʻokuʻu ʻana a i ʻole ka hoʻopanee ʻana i ka aie ʻaʻole ia e hāʻawi i kumu no ka hoʻomohala pono ʻana o kēia mau ʻāina. Hoʻopau wale ia i ka helu ʻana.
ʻOi aku ka manawa no ka hoʻopau ʻana i kēia mau ʻaiʻē ʻino, ʻaʻole hiki ke uku ʻia - i kēlā me kēia hihia - i ka wā o ka coronavirus recession. ʻO nā mea hōʻaiʻē aupuni a me nā poʻe pilikino i lawe i ka pilikia me kā lākou hoʻopukapuka. Ua hoʻohana lākou i nā pono o nā ʻāina e ulu ana ma o ka hāʻawi ʻana i ke kālā me nā uku ukupanee ʻino; ʻO ka manawa kēia e uku ai lākou i ke kumukūʻai no kēia pilikia ma mua o ka hoʻoikaika ʻana i nā ʻāina me nā kumu waiwai liʻiliʻi e uku i ke kālā makamae.
ʻO Dilma Rousseff (Peresidena mua o Brazil).
TM Thomas Isaac (Ke Kuhina Waiwai, Kerala, India).
ʻO Yanis Varoufakis (ke Kuhina Waiwai ma mua, Helene).
Jorge Arreaza (Kuhina Haole, Venezuela).
Fred M'membe (Peresidena, Socialist Party, Zambia).
ʻO Juan Grabois (Frente Patria Grande, ʻAmelika).
Vijay Prashad (Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research).
Manaʻolana mākou e hoʻolaha nui ʻia kēia ʻōlelo; e lawe ʻia e nā neʻe o ka poʻe e hoʻoikaika i nā aupuni ʻaʻole e ʻae i nā ʻaelike hoʻokuʻu ʻaiʻē liʻiliʻi e pahele hou ai i nā ʻāina i loko o nā pōʻai o ka loaʻa ʻole o ka wā lōʻihi.
Landlocked Malawi won its independence from Britain in 1964 but, rising from a legacy of colonial pillage, emerged as one of the most impoverished countries in the world. David Rubadiri had been Malawi’s first ambassador to both the United States of America and the United Nations and had a front-row seat to watch the development of underdevelopment; he resigned within a year of his commission. He wrote a poem called ‘Begging A. I. D.’ while teaching in Uganda in 1968:
I ka ilihune
o ka circus
ʻo ia ka home i kēia manawa,
ka hahau a ka Luna Hoomalu
nā māwae me ka paʻi
ʻai ma
ke kua o ko kakou noho ana.
Here is the essence of it all: colonialism had been defeated, but its structure has remained, with capital now loaned back at usurious rates and debt leveraged as an instrument of political control over the new nations. Old images of enslavement had to be recalled making way for the more anonymous forms of social domination. There is no whip in the hand of the Paris Club (the government creditors) or the London Club (the private creditors), nor in the hands of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; but its presence is felt beating down on humankind.
When the Iranian writer Sadeq Hedayat was greeted by friends, he would answer, ‘we are still in the shackles of life’ (dar qeyd-e hayat-im). Pela makou. ʻO ia ke kumu he hoʻomaka maikaʻi ka hoʻoikaika ʻana e hoʻopau i nā ʻaiʻē ʻino e wāwahi i kēia mau kaulahao, e hoʻolei aku i ka lima e haki ai i ka huila, e hemo ai i ka mea hana hoʻokauwā ʻaiʻē.
Hāʻawi kālā ʻia ʻo ZNetwork ma o ka lokomaikaʻi o kāna poʻe heluhelu.
E Makana mai