Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.96.970607113552.14515C-100000@acy1.digex.net> Date: Sat, 7 Jun 1997 11:45:58 -0400 From: Tu and Bob Myers <mailto:tuandbob@ACY.DIGEX.NET> Subject: Re: Congo debt To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Sounds like it has the potential to severely cut back on loans to some developing countries.If banks and funds have to worry about whether a loan may be tainted with someones version of illegality an unknown number of years after making the loan, decreasing the probability of pay back, a lot of loans are not going to be made.
Bob
On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Tom Hodges wrote:
> Sounds eminently reasonable to me.
>
> Tom Hodges
>
> On Sat, 7 Jun 1997, Clay Wescott wrote:
>
> > Now that Mobutu is gone from Zaire and we have the new Congo, the
> > questions we would like to pose are not just ones of how the new
> > administartion will perform, and whether it will be better or worse than
> > its predecessor - we must all hope, with the people of Zaire, that this
> > is change for the better.
> >
> > The new administration now faces a collosal debt run up by Mobutu and
> > his cronies over the years as they stole billions. So the question is:
> > who owes the money borrowed?
> >
> > At first sight the answer is obvious: the new government and the people
> > of the Congo. But is it?
> > Transparency International believes that there is a powerful legal case
> > to be made to the effect that the loans are tainted by illegality and
> > therefore unenforceable as against the new regime and the people of the
> > Congo.
> >
> > All ideas about how this concept might be progressed will be welcome.
> >
>