21811: Esser: Nuncio Urges Cancellation of Haiti's Foreign Debt (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Zenit News Agency
http://www.zenit.org

May 10, 2004

Nuncio Urges Cancellation of Haiti's Foreign Debt

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, MAY 10, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See would
like the international community to consider canceling the foreign
debts of poverty-stricken Haiti, says the papal representative to the
Caribbean nation.

Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the apostolic nuncio in Haiti, affirmed
this in an address delivered to more than 200 representatives of
government, civil society and diplomatic delegations.

The secretary of the nunciature in the Haitian capital told the
Missionary Service News Agency that Archbishop Bonazzi in his address
last Wednesday highlighted "the scandalous poverty in which the
majority of men, women and children of Haiti live."

After his four-year stint here, Archbishop Bonazzi is about to move
to Cuba, where he will be papal nuncio.

In the archbishop's opinion, the last political crisis -- which ended
Feb. 29 with the fall of President Jean Bertrand Aristide -- "has
shown clearly, precisely in the year of the bicentenary of Haiti's
independence, that a method of government centered on the
exploitation of the resources of a nation for personal benefit is
destined to failure and impoverishes the country more."

Haiti's foreign debt includes $1.3 billion in loans contracted
especially with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development
Bank.
.