Havana, October 1.- The Third World foreign debt received a hard knock on Friday, as voices progressed from lament through denunciation to calls for action.

This is a topic not talked about, except by creditors and international financial organizations using euphemisms and up-to-date formulas but no solutions.

Foreign debt is often omitted, or vaguely mentioned in the Goals of the Millennium adopted by the United Nations, but there is no way out for it. The so-called Initiative for Highly Indebted Countries, or any other cancellation agreement, does not solve the problem either.

Twenty years have passed since Cuban President Fidel Castro launched his campaign to put the topic of the underdeveloped world’s foreign debt onto political agendas and headlines all over the world.

Between 1986 and 2004, the Third World countries have paid 4.4 trillion dollars in interest for their foreign debt, revealed Cuban expert Osvaldo Martinez, director of Cuba’s World Economy Research Center.

These nations, including the poorest on the planet, paid 244 billion dollars as an annual average.

Many schools, hospitals, highways and other works and services were not constructed in all these years. But the number of poor, illiterate, sick without attention, and above all, fatality victims, has increased.

In that time Africa paid 506 billion dollars, Asia 1.35 trillion, and the Middle East 469 billion dollars.

Latin America paid 2.75 trillion dollars, which went to US and European banks.

Official help for world economic and social development does not touch 0.7 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of rich countries, and the 4.4 trillion dollars paid by the Third World countries is five times more than what the First World contributed to world development.

Thus, debt renegotiations become a straitjacket for privatizations, adjustment programs and even exchange for biodiversity, as in the case of Paraguay.

Latin America still owes 723 billion dollars, since its foreign debt grew 145 times more since 1959. Twelve Latin American countries spend more on their foreign debt interest than on education, and 13 dedicate more money to pay their debt than to improve their public health systems.

Six Latin American countries spend more money on their foreign debt than on education and public health together.

These are more than enough reasons to understand why poor peoples continue growing in rebelliousness.