THE EXPERIENCE OF EGYPT

Witness: Sherif Hatete (EGYPT)

I've had the privilege and joy of being here in Porto Alegre during the past days, of seeing people on the move, of seeing people on the move without discrimination of colour, race, religion, class, profession. After this experience I want to tell my friends what's happened here and to be more hopeful than before I came.

On debt, we have a very long history because in 1870 Egypt became indebted to European countries like England and France who imposed in our country a commission to deal with the economy of our country. When people of Egypt rose against the economic commission, Britain occupied our country with its troops and we became a British colony. So debt was the door to British colonialism.

There were long struggles, it was only in 1955 that British colonialism was evacuated from Egypt at the time of Nasser. In 1956, the World Bank was negotiating to give a loan for the Aswan High Dam but the World Bank imposed the same conditions as British colonialism imposed 70 years before - to oversee and control the country through a commission coming from the World Bank. Nasser refused and the Egyptian people refused, but we had to build the High Dam. So Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company and when Britain, France, Israel attacked the country, debts became a question of war. When they were forced to withdraw, Nasser nationalised other companies to build the high dam.

At that time we had a foreign debt of US$3 million, there was no internal debt, we had full employment and agrarian reforms. When I used to go back to my village and sit with my relatives, we had minimum wages, medicine, clinics, the children wore shoes to go to school, their faces were healthy.

In 1974, four years after Nasser died the US negotiated with Sadat and the World Bank came in and with the World Bank coming in, the Egyptian Pound became a threat to the US dollar, 60 enterprises were privatised one after another - around two-thirds privatised till now -- and a capitalist, speculative black market class has grown up. The debt now is US$37 million. In 1991, that debt was US$47 million, but in order to force Egypt into the Gulf War, the debt was reduced by US$10 million, Bush father's present to the Egyptian ruler to fight against Iraq. The debt is connected to war and today Egypt has a 20 percent unemployment rate, and two million unemployed graduates of technical schools, a trade deficit of US$30 million with the US.

Society has been corrupted by the percolation of the dollar into every area of life ... In order to develop dependency on small industries, the World Bank finances Sis where 5.5 million women work some 10-12 hours a day for a sum of $20 per month. Debt is connected to everything - economy, morals, making permanent slaves of aid.

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