Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of groups committed to debt cancellation in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, launched our 2006 Global Connections Tour a few weeks ago. The tour’s main goal is to inform people about how crushing debt fuels global poverty.

For Asume Osuoka, a tour speaker and the Energy and Mining program manager at Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, debt is an issue that sits at his doorstep.

“We know that over the years the Nigerian government has been paying well over $1 billion annually to creditors,” Asume explained. “Oil corporations have been [profiting] from the exploitation of our resources and those profits have been made to benefit these corporations. It is essential that the debt crisis is resolved to the benefit of our people.”

Asume also pointed to the ways in which debt tied to international finance institutions is a factor that influences government decisions on quality-of-life issues such as education and health care.

“Our government does not have the freedom, to negotiate policies that help our people,” said Asume. “Most of our government’s policies are shaped by the creditors themselves-the World Bank and the IMF-and we’re in a situation where they will penalize our country if we’re not following their prescriptions. This is very unjust and very undemocratic.”

With that in mind, our time in Idaho was highlighted by an enthusiastic crowd who grabbed a stack of action alerts and unsigned letters addressed to Senator Larry Craig and Senator Mike Crapo asking them to support the sale of IMF gold reserves to finance debt cancellation for impoverished countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

We later presented the letters to the senators’ staff, who were noncommittal, but seemed impressed by the stack of constituent letters.

After a break and some time catching up on work, we left Idaho Wednesday and headed for Utah.

Stay tuned for more news from Jubilee USA Network’s New Energy for Debt Cancellation Tour as we take action at the local level to push justice globally.

-Kristin Sundell, Jubilee USA Outreach & Congregations Coordinator

Photo 1: Asume Osuoka, Global Connections Tour speaker