NAIROBI, Kenya – Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo have something in common: billions of dollars in international loans that vanished into the coffers of their former dictators, Saddam Hussein and Mobutu Sese Seko.

Iraq has seen much of its $116 billion debt erased after lobbying by former Secretary of State James Baker III, and Africa advocates want to know why the United States can’t lobby governments to reduce the debt owed by Congo and other African countries, which totals at least $333 billion.

“It’s an outrageous double standard,” said Salih Booker, the head of Africa Action, a Washington-based lobbying group. “The administration has sent James Baker around the world basically arguing to the creditors of Iraq that when the despot fell, his debts disappears with him.

“But the U.S. is not prepared to make the same sort of case with Africa.”

Dozens of activist groups across the United States are making the same case. Organizations, such as the Philadelphia-based American Friends Services Committee, are planning marches and rallies to press the administration to push for debt relief for Africa.

“Our campaign’s call for cancellation of odious and illegal debt is no different than President Bush’s current pleas to Iraq’s creditors,” said Imani Countess, the coordinator of the group’s Africa Program, in a statement.

Bush administration officials draw a sharp distinction between Iraq and Africa, however.

“The economic reconstruction of Iraq is an important aim of our national security goals for the region,” said Tony Fratto, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department. “It’s important to the world that Iraq become a responsible stabilizing force in the region instead of destabilizing force.”

Fratto said the United States has ongoing programs to reduce Africa’s debt, dealing with each country on a bilateral basis in return for economic reforms. Grants by the Bush administration also are designed to help African countries without adding to their debt burden, he said.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s total external debt, which was $203 billion in 2001, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available, is about a quarter of Latin America and the Caribbean’s $765 billion debt, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Brazil, with three times Congo’s population, owed $226.4 billion. Mexico, twice as populous as Congo, was almost 14 times deeper in debt at $158 billion.

Still, activists argue that countries such as Congo, which according to the same statistics owed $11.4 billion in 2001, can make a strong argument to be treated the same way as Iraq. Mobutu pocketed billions of dollars in loans and aid when Congo was known as Zaire.

“Creditors should forgive the debt … when loans were made without the consent of the people and not spent in their interest,” Countess said.

Today, with AIDS, poverty, droughts, food shortages and regional conflicts ravaging the continent, Africa spends three times as much on repaying debt than it does on health care.

“Debt is the principal obstacle to Africa’s efforts to fight HIV-AIDS and to its development,” Booker said.

Unlike Iraq, which owes countries, Africa’s main creditors are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The two multilateral lending agencies have long argued that if they forgive Africa’s loans, it will be more difficult for them to collect on loans to poor nations in the future. They launched a program in 1996 to reduce debts, and by 2003 had written off $35.5 billion, but activists charge that’s less than a third of what they’d promised to write off.

Last year, the agencies announced that they would forgive $10 billion of Congo’s debt as long as the country met a series of stringent economic and political conditions. But even if Congo, still teetering between peace and civil war, meets those conditions, the debt relief wouldn’t take effect until 2006. And it would still owe $2 billion to its creditors, including the United States.

According to Jubilee USA, a coalition of church-based groups campaigning for debt relief, Congo needs about $2.4 billion a year to meet its minimum needs for development.

Currently, the government’s revenues, including foreign aid, are less than $500 million a year.

Baker quickly persuaded France, Russia, Germany, and China to cancel much of Iraq’s debt. This would allow Iraq to use its oil revenues for reconstruction, lessening the U.S. costs to rebuild Iraq.

Marie Clarke, the national coordinator for Jubilee USA, said the speed of Baker’s success “reflects the hypocrisy, that compassionate conservation extends only to countries where there are clear economic interests.”

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