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Paul Jay at The Real News Network:

A new book titled Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent begins its conclusion with the following. During the past four decades, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a financial hemorrhage. We estimate that from the thirty-three countries for which we have data, capital flight between 1970 and 2008 amounted to $735 billion in 2008 currency. Including imputed interest earnings, the drain of resources amounted to $944 billion. These sums far surpass the same countries’ combined external debts, which stood at $177 billion in 2008. This means that sub-Saharan Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world. If this is true, why are so many of Africa’s people so poor? The answer, of course, is that the subcontinent’s external assets are private and in the hands of a narrow and wealthy stratum of its population, whereas its external debts are public and therefore borne by the people as a whole through their governments. Our statistical estimates indicate that half or more of the money flowing into Africa as foreign loans exited in the same year as capital flight. Now joining us are the authors of the book: Professor Leonce Ndikumana, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a research associate at the PERI institute, and Professor James K. Boyce, director of the Program on Development, Peace Building and Environment at PERI institute. Thank you both for joining us.

In Part 1, of this 3-part series, Boyce and Ndikumana argue that under international law, debts incurred by dictators should not be enforceable (14:34):

from the transcript:

PAUL JAY: So this is the beginning of what’s going to be a three-part series. In part one, we’re going to talk about the roots of this debt crisis in Africa. In the second part, we’re going to talk about the human costs of the crisis. And in the third part, we’re going to talk about solutions and just what the word “odious debt” refers to. So, Leonce, can you give us some background on what you mean by this odious debt, some of the historical roots of this debt? …

In Part 2, Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce explain how the cost of servicing external odious debt leads to tragic underspending on health care and education (11:50):

from the transcript:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington. This is the second part of our series of interviews based on the book Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. One of the things the book points out is that Africa spends more on servicing its external debt than it does on health care. …

And in Part 3, Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce detail how international law supports Africa rejecting debts that did not benefit the people (18:04):

from the transcript:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington. This is the third and final part of our series of interviews based on the book Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. In the first two parts of our interviews, we talked about the extent to which Africa’s debt was accumulated because IMF and World Bank and private banks made loans to dictators, kleptocracies, in the name of the Cold War and for the sake of the scramble for the riches of Africa, gave these loans knowing they would be, essentially, misused, not used for the benefit of the people of the countries that did the borrowing. So the question in this segment we’re asking: then why the heck should the people of these countries keep servicing these debts? And it turns out there is some international law that says maybe they shouldn’t be. …