THE chairman of the Catholic development agency Trocaire, Bishop John Kirby, has urged the Government to use its influence during the EU presidency later this year to demand that the huge foreign debts of the world's poorest countries be cancelled or reduced.
Speaking at the launch of Trocaire's lenten campaign in Dublin yesterday, he said the next meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in April provided an ideal opportunity for this.
He asked the Government to demand that last October's decision by the multilateral lending agencies to examine reducing the debt burden of four countries Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Zambia should be extended to another 40. He said such countries were forced to cut back on vital agricultural, health and education spending to finance their debt, with the result that "the people of those countries suffer while the banks thrive"
Bishop Kirby estimated that while development agencies like Trocaire contributed $5 billion, and governments $50 billion to Third World development every year, Third World countries sent back nearly $200 billion to the First World in debt repayments.
He emphasised that almost all Trocaire's programmes are focused on the advancement of human rights. The Kenyan Bishop of Nakuru, Dr Raphael Ndingi, spoke of the help he had received from Trocaire when he had criticised politicians who were stirring up ethnic conflict in his diocese.
The Irish agency had helped with the rehabilitation of people who had been driven off their land by the conflict and had provided programmes of civic education to make people aware of justice and human rights issues.