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Americans' Valentine's Day Message to Sec. Paulson: "Have a Heart, Cancel Liberia's Debt"

February 3, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A national grassroots campaign mounted by Jubilee USA, international humanitarian agency Church World Service and other organizations is urging Americans to send Valentine's Day wishes to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, asking him to have a heart and cancel Liberia's $3.5 billion debt.

The campaign is targeted to influence decision-making at the February 13-14 Liberia donors conference in Washington. The District's oldest multi-issue think tank the Institute for Policy Studies will collect all Valentines cards and messages gathered in the countrywide campaign and will deliver them to Paulson on Tuesday February 6.

The grassroots effort has appealed to faith houses, community and school groups across the nation to organize and submit the Valentines.

After two decades of dictatorship and civil war, creditors expect Liberia to begin servicing its debts at a cost of $80-100 million per year.

Rich country creditors are currently insisting that Liberia make $1.5 billion in back payments and accumulated interest or "arrears" before it can become eligible for any debt relief or cancellation.

"At that kind of repayment rate," says Church World Service Executive Director and CEO Rev. John L. McCullough," it would take literally over a thousand years for Liberia to repay its debt."

Mary Catherine Hinds helped lead the Liberia Valentines effort in the Durham, North Carolina area. Hinds, Associate Regional Director for Church World Service in the Carolinas, told The Durham News,"Three quarters of [Liberia's] population lives on less than $1 a day.

"President Bush and the international community have repeatedly pledged their support and aid to help the country rebuild," she said,"but so far they have stopped short of canceling the country's $3.5 billion debt."

CWS' McCullough says Liberia has more pressing needs."This once-prosperous nation is starting from scratch after ruination," says McCullough."The United Nation's human development index ranks Liberia among the most impoverished countries in the world."

According to a Reuters report on Friday (Feb 2) Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf welcomed China's decision to forgive the war-torn country's debt, and asked for the upcoming donors' meeting to follow suit.

Africa's first democratically elected woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, now leading Liberia's reconstruction, says having to pay back the $3.5 billion debt makes it impossible for the country to move forward.

Much of Liberia's debt was incurred by the regimes of dictators Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor between 1980 and 2003. Since debt servicing was all but abandoned in the country's recent years of civil war, ballooning back payments and accumulated interest or arrears comprise most of Liberia's current debt burden.

As part of its current multi-program Africa Initiative, Church World Service has supported peace and reconciliation, trauma recovery, emergency relief and rehabilitation programs in war-devastated Liberia and was one of the lead organizations urging U.S. and world community attention to impending civil war and collapse in Liberia.

Jubilee Network USA is an alliance of 75 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups working for the cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The Institute for Policy Studies works with academics and social movements focused on peace, justice and the environment.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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