This is a petition to Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary, to act on behalf of Haiti to urge cancellation of Haiti's debt by creditors (the US already canceled the debt owed to Haiti in September 2009 after Haiti had met a number of development milestones. Haiti currently owes nearly $1 billion to other nations). Haiti was already on-track for this anyway, and I believe the entire debt was likely to be forgiven this year with other nations following the US lead.
The bigger point, I believe, is that during this disaster relief, the petition requests aid be given to Haiti in the form of GRANTS (free money) and not loans (interest-bearing money). Loans would immediately place them back in debt which amounts to money being used to pay off interest (not even the principal because they are so poor) to other countries. The money they would spend on loan repayment should be used instead to build their infrastructure (hospitals, schools, roads, electricity, and so forth).
There is a fine-line between accountability and mercy sometimes. In Haiti's case, however, they were already on-track to be debt-free (through cancellation) so that they could internally use the money instead of sending it overseas to make interest payments. This was an act of mercy by the US and certain others. It was also due to the hard work of Haitians to meet a series of developmental milestones in their economy, governance, and so forth.
We should urge nations to continue to act mercifully at this point and provide grants, not loans.
Thanks to Andrea for passing this along.
Ben
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