Sir, - I would like to pose two questions arising from the remarks of your columnist Kevin Myers and your correspondent John J. Carroll (February 25th).
The Bretton Woods Financiers, against the expressed wishes of the people of many countries, persuaded governments that were known to be hopelessly corrupt to accept loans of billions of dollars to finance ambitious projects which had been evaluated as viable by the financiers themselves.
As the financiers had been warned, a considerable proportion of the monies was diverted to the personal fortunes of the countries' leaders, the remainder being devoted to projects which frequently proved to be economic disasters in spite of the financiers' optimistic forecasts.
As George Woods, president of the World Bank (1963-1981), addressing the Swedish Bankers' Association before he retired, acknowledged: "Waste, inefficiency and even dishonesty have all too often deflected resources from development."
An Update of June, 1998 from the Debt and Development Coalition Ireland informs us that when Erwin Blumenthal, a German banker, was appointed in 1982 by the World Bank to monitor and manage the Bank of Zaire, he reported: "Mobutu and his government show no concern about the question of paying off loans and the public debt . . . there was, and there still is, one sole obstacle that negates all prospect: the corruption of the team in power." Notwithstanding this report the Update informs us that the IMF trebled the amount of its loans to Mobutu between 1982 and 1989, leaving the people with a debt of $13 billion.
When Mobutu and other corrupt politicians, having washed their hands of the economic disasters, and in Mr Myers's phrase, having "looted the national treasury", moved on to live in luxury elsewhere on the profits of their corruption:
1. Can the people of these countries be held morally or legally obliged to repay the debt? and
2. Can the people be held legally or morally responsible to repay loans advanced by financiers with such criminal irresponsibility in the above and other similar cases? - Yours, etc., Gerald Perry,
Rathfeigh, Tara, Co Meath.