86/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
Further on, we examine Argentinian debt under the 197 6-8 2 dic
tatorship. It is clear that there was systematic complicity between
the banks of the North, the IMF, US officials and the Argentinian dic
tatorship to steep the country in debts while enriching Argentinian
officials and the North's financial institutions.
A considerable share of money loaned by the North (almost 80 per
cent according to Vilas, 1993, and other writers) never reached the
target countries - let alone the people of these countries.
It is also possible to get an idea of the huge share of money loaned
to the South that made its way into Northern bank accounts, by
looking at Table 8.1 ('Gross and net debt - end of 19 9 5'). In the case
of Latin America, the table shows that the equivalent of two-thirds of
total debt has been deposited by Latin Americans into Northern bank
accounts. Without a doubt, a significant share of this money comes
from the funds loaned to Latin American countries and subsequently
embezzled by government officials and businesspeople from these
countries.
One also has to take into account the loan money used for projects
aimed at increasing the prestige of dictatorial and non-dictatorial
regimes. In Cote d'lvoire, for example, Houphouet-Boigny built a
replica of St Peter's Basilica in the village where he was born. Mobutu
had the Gbadolite Palace built in his home village. These examples
are just the tip of the iceberg.
Finally, account should be taken of the environmental and human
damage caused by the building of energy mega-projects and com
munications infrastructure. We should also keep in mind that most
of the spending on these projects went towards importing equipment
from the North and paying the salaries of experts from the North.
Very little money actually made it to the South. To top it all off, many
of these projects were never completed or work very much under
capacity since they were not drawn up in accordance with the real
needs of the countries in question.
Corruption also made headway within private business, where
individuals from both the North and the South filled their pockets. A
revealing example is that of Elf Aquitaine in Congo-Brazzaville. In
1997, the former Congolese president, Patrice Lissouba, opened up a
can of worms when he lodged a complaint against the Elf group for
involvement in a coup d'etat. This was the way Elf had chosen to
'punish' Lissouba for considering the idea of selling a series of oil wells
to an American oil company. Lissouba's complaint says: 'It would not