Following is a press release from members of an debtor nation leadership group which was formed primarily to promote the elimination of all debts presently owed by countries typically from South of the equator. Note especially the principle upon which their cause is based.

GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA, NOVEMBER IS - 21, 1999

From the three continents of the South [South of the equator], leaders of social movements, political and religious organizations gathered at the First Jubilee South Summit held in Gauteng, South Africa from November 18th to 21st, 1999. 130 delegates from 33 countries, representing national and regional Jubilee debt cancellation campaigns as well as other popular movements, deliberated and acted to take forward a common analysis vision and strategy to build, from the grass roots upwards, a new world characterized by economic and social justice in which the debt is addressed by governments North and South as a matter of restitution and reparation for the crimes committed against our peoples and environment.

Jubilee South (JS) is a movement of social movements in South countries. Delegates shared a secular understanding of the "New Beginning" symbolized by the principle of Jubilee, while referring to South as a political category encompassing the oppressed and their organizations around the world in their struggle to end the prevailing neoliberal [globalization] paradigm of power and policy, symbolized by the odious political and ideological construct called debt.

Delegates came to a general agreement on principles, perspectives, and a strategic framework for addressing the debt problem. On the level of principle, Jubilee South reiterated its call for total debt cancellation for all South countries, taking into account that it is the North that is in debt- historically, ecologically, socially, and morally--to the peoples of the South. The slogans "Don't Owe, Won't Pay' and "Who owes Whom?" sums it all up.

... We envision a New Beginning with no room for immoral debt servicing at the expense of the poor. We build on struggles in the South that continue to prove the bankruptcy of the notion that there is no alternative and shameful integration into a global political economy characterized by submission to the United States of America and the other rich countries, to foreign and corporate capital, and to savage destruction of the environment.

Second in regard to perspectives, Jubilee South rejected all policies derived from the so-called Washington Consensus and neoliberal [globalization] paradigm. The IMF and the WTO have no moral authority to impose conditions and have no capacity to provide solutions to problems they have created and intend to perpetuate. They cannot be reformed. JS says "Shut them Down"!

The JS Summit strategic framework places primary attention on the need to change the policies and approaches toward debt and neoliberalism that characterizes most of our governments in the South. We challenge current debt policies and we raise the issue of governance and state responsibilities. Today most of our governments and parties are part of the problem, but we will work strenuously so that they can also be part of the solution; so that human welfare and equitable development are placed above debt servicing and irresponsible borrowing.

The struggle for international democracy is predicated on the struggle for national democracy. We call on our movements and parties in the South to forcefully incorporate the call for debt repudiation in their platforms, and we call on movements and Jubilee campaigns in the North to press for the total debt cancellation for all South countries, not as a matter of charity or provision of credit relief, but as an elementary act of justice that lays a foundation for the construction of a new global order where the peoples of the Global South will live in dignity and in hill enjoyment of their human rights in harmony with the environment, in consistency with the struggle of previous generations and the rights of the generation to come.