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Algeria lashes

out over Third

World debt

burden

BANGKOK: Algeria delivered an impassioned attack on Saturday on the burdensome debts that harm Africa's chances to get richer, saying relief has been doled out unevenly.

"I'm very pleased to see we've written off the debt of Russia," Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika told delegates to a UN conference on Third World trade. "Of course, Russia's not Africa. I get the message. I think we all get the message".

Bouteflika said Algeria, while rich in oil and natural gas, is held back by US 33 billion dollars in foreign debts Ñ which forces the North African nation to pay out dollars 5 billion per year in interest alone.

Bouteflika said the International Monetary Fund had written off some Third World debts that seemed unpayable. He welcomed the move, but called it too little, too late.

"This is the macabre specter of someone visiting a dying man and saying, "Well, die happy. You won't have any debts to pay," Bouteflika said.

Bouteflika, who also serves as chairman of the Organisation of African Unity, said African nations have historically been disadvantaged since the days when many Africans were sold into slavery and sent off to help develop countries that are now rich.

Colonization of much of Africa aggravated the troubles, with European nations eventually pulling out without leaving behind the necessary schools and infrastructure to help the continent get ahead, he said.

"We cannot set aside an enormous swathe of humanity and live with a clear conscience," he said.ÑAP