TUs, civil society outfits, economists, lawyers discuss debt crisis and its impact on people in Asia

Forty trade unions, mass organisations, economists, lawyers and activists from six countries (Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia) came together on Friday to discuss the debt crisis and its impact. The event was hosted by UNITE, a coalition of Trade Unions and Mass Organisations in Sri Lanka.

The participants discussed the many similarities in debt situations across Asia, where authoritarian Governments have taken on debt to enrich local elites, and then burden the working people with the consequences of inequitable debt repayment. These consequences include labour law reforms aimed at weakening organized labour and labour protections, continuing to pay starvation wages to workers, dispossessing farmers and fishers through personal debt, selling strategic state assets and exposing third world nations to unregulated financial flows resulting in economic instability. As participants noted, working people in third world countries do not consent to these debt undertakings yet suffer the most from their consequences.

A draft statement against debt which continues to trap third world nations and keep them in a state of perpetual underdevelopment was prepared then discussed by the participants of the meeting. The immediate necessity to arrest the deteriorating economic situations in all countries and corner the rise of the far-right which dividers working people by exploiting social divisions among ethnicity, caste and gender was also discussed.

The participants also condemned the horrendous genocide taking place in Palestine and supported the call for a free Palestine. Palestine serves as a living reminder to working people across the world to come together to fight the fascism of governments such as Israel’s as duly supported by Western governments. The imperialist system they uphold continues the colonization project by suffocating third world peoples through unsustainable debt and vulture capitalism, failing which it resorts to genocidal wars.

The meeting concluded with a resolution to form a Transnational Movement of Working People committed to fighting debt injustice.