1. Facts

• Debt: AU$635m, Reparations: ??
• Australian Wheat Board spokesman Peter McBride said the Federal Government was owed AU$513 million in wheat sales it had paid for through the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation. Australian wheat growers were owed a further AU$121 million from uninsured sales made before 1991. (11/12/03)

2. Politics

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• Chris Kenny, spokesman for Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said: "There is a debt owed to Australia, including the Commonwealth Government and wheat growers, and it all relates to the export of food items, mainly wheat, before the first Gulf War." Mr Kenny said the AU$635 million of pre-1991 outstanding debt would not be waived by Australia and that the US had no ability to ask it be waived. "There are multilateral discussions going on over this; we are in the preliminary stages of discussions." Asked if the US had specifically asked Australia to forget the debt, Mr Kenny said: "We were part of the action to get rid of Saddam Hussein. We've had this dispute with Iraq over debt for many, many years, prior to the removal of Saddam Hussein. It's not for anybody else to ask us to do anything. We believe that money should be paid to Australia." (11/12/03)

3. Action - Write to

Write to Andrew Lindberg, Managing Director of the Australian Wheat Board.

• In October he met Iraqi interim Trade Minister Ali Allawi and said "The trust and goodwill that has been built up between the people of Iraq and Australia through our 50 year trading relationship in trading wheat should stand Australia’s trade in good stead into the future."
• However that relationship is threatened by the inistance that the battered Iraqi people pay this AU$635m debt left over from Saddam's regime.
• In 2000 Australia accounted for 22% of Iraq's imports, second only to France.
• Explain that it is in Australia's own self-interest to continue this close relationship, rather then threatening it through demanding this debt.
• While the provision of grain to Saddam's regime was clearly not as serious as the provision of weapons, doing so on the basis of credit freed up resources which he was able to use in the 1980s to fight Iran and oppress the Kurds.

Also write to Prime Minister John Howard. Please let us know what response you recieve.

LINK: Jubilee Australia