A-Infos (en) The Real 'Foreign Debt'

[humanrights-l@lawlib.wuacc.edu, JGA@eureka.qc.ca (Jean-Guy Aubé)]

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   Date: January 26, 1998 
   Posted by: twn@igc.org 
 
/* Written 5:26 PM  Jan 26, 1998 by twn@igc.org in twn.features */ 
/* ---------- "The real foreign debt" ---------- */ 
 
 
THE REAL FOREIGN DEBT 
 
A letter from an Indian chief to all European governments to repay 
the gold and silver they borrowed between 1503 and 1660. 
 
By Guaicaipuro Cuautemoc 
 
 
     Here am I, Guaicaipuro Cuautemoc, who have come to discover 
those who are celebrating the discovery. Here am I, a descendant of 
those who colonised America 40,000 years ago, who have come to 
discover those who discovered it 500 years ago. 
 
     My European brother at his border asks me for a written 
document with a visa in order to discover those who discovered me. 
The European moneylender asks me to pay a debt contracted by Judas 
which I never authorised to be sold to me. The European pettifogger 
explains to me that all debts must be paid with interest, even if 
it means selling human beings and whole countries without their 
consent. I am gradually discovering them. 
 
     I also have payments to claim. I can also claim interest. The 
evidence is in the Archivo de Indias. Paper after paper, receipt 
after receipt, signature after signature show that between 1503 and 
1660 alone, 185,000 kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver 
were shipped into San Lucar de Barrameda from America. 
 
     Plunder? I wouldn't say so. Because that would mean that our 
Christian brothers are violating their seventh commandment. 
Pillage? May Tanatzin have mercy on me for thinking that the 
Europeans, like Cain, kill and then deny their brother's blood! 
Genocide? That would mean giving credit to slanderers like 
Bartolome de las Casa who equated the discovery of the Indies with 
its destruction, or to extremists such as Dr Arturo Pietri, who 
states that the outburst of capitalism and of the current European 
civilisation was due to the flood of precious metals! No way! 
 
     Those 185,000 kilos of gold and 16 million kilos of silver 
must be considered as the first of several friendly loans granted 
by America for Europe's development. The contrary would presuppose 
war crimes, which would mean not only demanding immediate return, 
but also compensation for damages. 
 
     I prefer to believe in the least offensive hypothesis. Such 
fabulous capital exports were nothing short of the beginning of a 
Marshalltezuma Plan to guarantee the reconstruction of a barbarian 
Europe, ruined by deplorable wars against the Muslim foe. For this 
reason, as we approach the Fifth Centennial of the Loan, we must 
ask ourselves: 
 
     What have our European brothers done in a rational, 
responsible or at least productive way with the resources so 
generously advanced by the International Indoamerican Fund? 
     The answer is: unfortunately nothing. Strategically, they 
squandered it on battles such as Lepanto, invincible armies, Third 
Reichs and other forms of mutual extermination, only to end up 
being occupied by the Yankee troops of NATO, like Panama (but 
without a canal). 
 
     Financially, they were incapable - even after a moratorium of 
500 years - of either paying back capital with interest or of 
becoming independent from net returns, raw material and cheap 
energy that they import from the Third World. 
 
     This disgusting picture corroborates Milton Friedman's 
assertion that a subsidised economy can never function properly, 
and compels us to claim - for their own good - the repayment of 
capital and interest which we have so generously delayed all these 
centuries. 
 
     Stating this, we want to make clear that we will refrain from 
charging our European brothers the despicable and blood-thirsty 
floating rates of 20 or even 30% that they charge to Third World 
countries. We shall only demand the devolution of all precious 
metals advanced, plus a modest fixed annum accumulated over 300 
years. 
 
     On this basis, and applying the European formula of compound 
interest, we inform our discoverers that they only owe us, as a 
first payment against the debt, a mass of 185,000 kilos of gold and 
16 million kilos of silver, both raised to the power of 300. This 
equals a figure that would need over 300 digits to put it down on 
paper and whose weight fully exceeds that of the planet Earth. 
 
     What huge piles of gold and silver! How much would they weigh 
when calculated in blood? To say that in half a millennium Europe 
has not been able to produce sufficient wealth to pay back this 
modest interest is as much as admitting to the total financial 
failure of capitalism. 
 
     The pessimists of the Old World state that their civilisation 
is already so bankrupt that they cannot fulfil their financial or 
moral commitments. If this is the case, we shall be happy if they 
pay us with the bullet that killed the poet. But that is not 
possible, because that bullet is the very heart of Europe. - Third 
World Network Features 
 
-ends- 
 
 
Reprinted from Revista, Renancer Indianista, No. 7. 
 
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