Nuncio Urges Cancellation of Haiti's Foreign Debt

The Holy See would like the international community to consider canceling the foreign debts of poverty-stricken Haiti, says the papal representative to the Caribbean nation.

Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, the apostolic nuncio in Haiti, affirmed this in an address delivered to more than 200 representatives of government, civil society and diplomatic delegations.

The secretary of the nunciature in the Haitian capital told the Missionary Service News Agency that Archbishop Bonazzi in his address last Wednesday highlighted "the scandalous poverty in which the majority of men, women and children of Haiti live."

After his four-year stint here, Archbishop Bonazzi is about to move to Cuba, where he will be papal nuncio.

In the archbishop's opinion, the last political crisis -- which ended Feb. 29 with the fall of President Jean Bertrand Aristide -- "has shown clearly, precisely in the year of the bicentenary of Haiti's independence, that a method of government centered on the exploitation of the resources of a nation for personal benefit is destined to failure and impoverishes the country more."

Haiti's foreign debt includes $1.3 billion in loans contracted especially with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.