Global Debt - Who really owes?

Today on Democracy Now, President Evo Morales of Bolivia remarks, “Unfortunately, the so-called developing countries are the hardest hit by natural phenomena... These natural phenomena are the result of unbridled industrialization of the countries of the West. I think the countries of the West are under an obligation to repay this environmental debt”

I was struck by this phrase “environmental debt”. Perhaps because the previous story on the show was an examination of how Haiti, as a result of the stipulations of loans from the World Bank and IMF, has had it’s agricultural industry turned inside out. Now the country, which 30 years ago was able to produce all of its own rice, is dependent upon imported rice, which has become too expensive for people to buy and they are having a huge crisis of hunger.

Haiti is in crisis due to its debt, supposedly. But Morales’s words struck me with another notion – who is in debt, really? Who has capitalized on the resources extracted, the labor exploited, the ecosystems decimated? Who is defaulting on the responsibility for those misappropriations?

Imagine a paradigm shift in which we recognize the true liability – that capital is not the paramount currency; its value is false. Life, autonomy, sustainability – these are the costs extracted and these must be repaid. These are the retributions owed – and collection time can’t come soon enough, can it?