Is an earthquake what it takes to get debt cancelled?

Today we heard a pledge from G7 countries, namely the US, UK, France, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan, to “cancel all Haiti bilateral debt”. Although this is a great thing for Haiti, the question must be asked: Why does it take a huge natural disaster for the First World to cancel its debts to poor Third World countries?

I’m no economist (in fact, I hated economics at school), but a couple of hundred millions dollars is no skin off any First World country’s nose. The total unpaid debt in the Third World is around $523 billion – only half of Barak Obama’s $1 trillion stimulus package for the United States. It would not be that hard at all to cancel this debt to the Third World, and then really give these countries a chance at rebuilding themselves, making the world a more stable and safer place.

Want to help stop terrorism? Canceling debt, allowing these countries to develop, will in turn make them much more stable and less reliant on the West. This greatly reduces the ammunition of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, which thrive on hatred of the West among common people, in such countries as Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq. If we cancel the debt, and conditions improve thanks to the West canceling the debt, it would surely change or help change the opinions of a lot of people in these countries, and help them to see the West in a more favourable light.

But honestly – why should a country have to wait for a huge disaster like the deaths of a few hundred thousand people, in order to have something happen that should’ve happened many years ago? If I were leading a Third World country, I’d be thinking of faking some huge disaster in order to get more foreign aid and debt cancellations – it seems the only way!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8502567.stm