The Gaurdian reports that Britian is demanding the repayment of GBP 100m lent to the Mubarak regime for arms deals.

Incidentally, IMF officials are currently in Cairo trying to talk Egypt’s interim government into a $3 billion loan.

With these two news items in mind, it does not become too difficult to connect a few dots and understand the timeliness of Britian’s claim for repayment of loans made to the ousted regime. It is highly doubdtful that the Egyptian people will actually benefit from such a loan, for most of it will probably go towards repayment of part of Egypt’s foreign debt, including what we owe Britain for arms bought by Mubarak. The question is: should the Egyptian people bear the burden of debt they had no say in , borne in their name by a dictator? Is such debt what could be considered ‘odius debt‘?

The ‘Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt’ certainly believes so, calling for a comprehensive audit for all of Egypt’s forign debt, and aiming “to facilitate Egypt’s economic independence from the many forms of exploitation, subordination and resource misappropriation that were imposed upon the people of Egypt during the past decades by the regime of the ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak and his collaborators abroad.”

Can Egypt do what Ecuador did in 2006?